Families, as well as other social groups, generally live permanently in houses. English-speaking people generally call any building they routinely occupy "home". Many people leave their house during the day for work and recreation but typically return to it to sleep or for other activities.

A house generally has at least one entrance, usually a door or a portal; some early houses, however, such as those at Çatal Hüyük, featured access by means of roofs and ladders. Many houses have back doors that open into what some English-speakers call the backyard or the back garden. When built in appropriate climates, houses may have any number of windows to let in natural sunlight and to provide a view to the outside.

Word-usage

Although English-speakers primarily use the word "house" to refer to a dwelling or residence, the term "house" may describe any of a variety of buildings with a specific use, such as an opera house. The term in colloquial usage may also apply to any of many types of businesses: from a printing house (publisher) to a "house of ill repute" (brothel). The term can also apply to characteristics within a business, such as a "house advantage" in a casino, "house wine" in a restaurant or "house lights" over the audience in a theatre.

Humans have long treated and named favored shrines or temples as a "house of God", and religious buildings have inherited the role as a "house of prayer". The term "madhouse" refers disparagingly to a mental hospital or insane asylum.

As a verb, to house (pronounced [hæuz]) means, "to provide a routine locale for an object, a person or an organization". Museums, for example, can house historic or artistic artifacts. A storefront may house a business or an organization; an entity (a local authority, for example) may house a family in an apartment or other dwelling. City planners often refer to a collection of domiciles (either for persons, for organizations, for animals or for objects) as housing. An individual person or a single object might also find housing in an appropriate domicile.

The two words "house" and "home" have distinctly different meanings and connotations. "House" refers to the physical object, "home" has a more abstract and poetic connotation as the center of family life. Enlisted men during World War II used the phrase "A house is not a home"—in part to justify infidelity during wartime. On the other hand a stately home classifies as a house.

Historical associations between extended families and their property (notably their house) can account for usage of the word "house" to mean a dynasty—a noble or royal house. Compare also household.

From : en.wikipedia.org