α. See town n. and house n.1
β. Scottish pre-1700 tounes hous, pre-1700 townes hous, 1800s toon’s hoose, 1900s– townshouse.
townhousen.
/ˈtaʊnhaʊs/, U.S. /ˈtaʊnˌhaʊs/ 1. Usually as two words or with hyphen.
a. A public building used for the administration of local government, the holding of court sessions, public meetings, entertainments, etc.; a town hall. Scottish and U.S. regional (chiefly north-eastern) in later use.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > ruler or governor > deliberative, legislative, or administrative assembly > local government body > [noun] > local government offices > town-hall
guild-hall?a1000
tolsel1373
toll-hall1395
tollbooth1440
common house1450
town hallc1453
townhouse?1518
state housea1587
City Hall1603
?1518 Virgilius sig. C.iv That horse ye shall do brynge a fore the towne howse.
1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 282/1 Towne house, pretoire.
1550 J. Hooper Ouersight Jonas v. 106 Certeyne pictures in the towne house at Basyll.
1579 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxf. (1880) 403 Suche arrowes as the towne howsse nowe hathe.
1610 P. Holland tr. W. Camden Brit. i. 396 The greater part of the towne [sc. Buckingham] beareth North, wherein standeth the Towne-house.
1633 Linlithgow Burgh Rec. 24 June in Dict. Older Sc. Tongue at Tounes hous For leiding of steanis for bigging of the townes hous in Blaknes.
1678 London Gaz. No. 1287/3 The Burghers of Ghent have been commanded to bring in their Arms to the Town-House.
1701 in Gentleman's Mag. (1818) 88 Suppl. 601/2 We inned here at the town-house, the town-hall being over part of it.
1773 Hist. Brit. Dominions N. Amer. iii. ii. 71 The city-hall, or town-house, is a strong brick building, two stories in heighth.
1857 J. G. Whittier in National Era 1 Jan. 1/2 The painted, shingly town-house where The freeman's vote for Freedom falls!
1896 J. M. Barrie Sentimental Tommy i. 3 If you jest see'd the Thrums townhouse!
1925 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 6 June 1035/1 The clinics were to be held once a week in the Town House.
1980 Peterborough (New Hampsh.) Transcript 7 Feb. 22/1 Mr. Kennedy..arrived at the Town House about 6 p.m.
2007 E. LaPlante Salem Witch Judge (2008) xi. 152 In the courtroom on the second floor of the Town House of Salem, the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened for a trial.
b. A building for housing the poor; an almshouse; a workhouse. Now historical and rare (U.S. regional (Connecticut) in later use).
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society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > dwelling place or abode > institutional homes > [noun] > for the poor, infirm, etc.
bead-housec1160
spittle?c1225
spittle-housec1315
maison dieu1354
almshouse1395
hospital14..
God's house1425
hospitality1571
townhouse1597
guest house1600
gifts1651
college1694
asylum1776
hospice1818
group home1873
pogey1891
1597 in East Anglian (1858) 1 404 There Accompt, made the xixth of October, 1584, Aoxxvjo, El. at wyche time J yelded my Accompt for the Towne house.
1650 in Proc. Suffolk Inst. Archaeol. & Nat. Hist. (1859) 2 109 We present the churchwardens for a towne house joyning to Larenc Eusden, the wall being fallen down..and doe amerse the churchwardens ten shillings.
1663 in L. A. Botelho Old Age & Eng. Poor Law, 1500–1700 (2002) ii. 62 For mending the towne house.
1723 F. Hutchinson Let. Member Parl. 12 For aged Widows, and decay'd Tradesmen, and other honest Poor, that are over-burthen'd with Children, Town-Houses that belong to the Parish, and are disposed of by the Parish Officers are found of great Use.
1725 Acct. Several Work-houses 16 A large House..belonging to the Hamlet, and now called the Town-House, for lodging all the Poor who received Pensions, and were before lodged at the publick Charge.
1865 New Haven (Connecticut) Daily Palladium 23 Mar. Barney Carter is the grand patriarch of the professional ‘bummers’ of Hartford. For the last eighteen years he has spent at least three-quarters of every twelvemonth in the town house or jail.
1889 R. T. Cooke Steadfast 28 Just as soon as the road settled she should ‘cart her off to the town-house’.
1963 S. C. Powell Puritan Village iv. 62 A ‘town house’ was constructed in 1631 to house some poor.
c. U.S. regional (New England). A town prison. Now rare.
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society > authority > punishment > imprisonment > prison > [noun] > attached to a city court
Compter1428
counter1428
townhouse1857
1857 Rev. Statutes State of Maine xii. cxli. 740 Town Houses of Correction... Any person belonging to or found in such town, liable to be sent by a justice of the peace to the county house of correction, may be sent to such town house by any justice of such town.
1867 Hartford (Connecticut) Daily Courant 17 May 8/1 At the police court, yesterday, John Brennan was sent to the town house for 60 days for vagrancy.
1902 Naugatuck (Connecticut) Daily News 17 Sept. Charles Schwartz, who has been suffering from a severe attack of delirium tremens for a few days, escaped from the town house yesterday afternoon.
1903 Springfield (Mass.) Republican 5 July 1/7 A mob of young men..angered by the arrest of one of their number..stormed the town house in an attempt to release the prisoner.
2. Usually as two words or with hyphen. A house in a town or city; esp. one belonging to someone who has another property in the country.
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society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > dwelling place or abode > a dwelling > a house > types of house > [noun] > house in specific situation
townhouse1571
garden house1598
corner-house1693
wharf-house1698
notch house1825
suburban1856
twilight home1934
twilight house1971
townhome1976
1571 J. Bridges Serm. Paules Crosse 18 Those Monks..forsooke towne houses, and dwelte by themselues besyde the townes.
1633 in J. Stuart Extracts Council Reg. Aberdeen (1871) III. 63 For scairstie of chamberis and want of beddis to serve the haill studentis within the said colledge sindrie of the schollares wes forceit to ly in the toun housses.
1656 J. Harrington Common-wealth of Oceana Corollary 209 His Town house, and his Country retreat, the sweetest Places in either.
1734 R. Morris Lect. Archit. vii. 112 As in Town-Houses, so in the Country, the Kitchen should be remote from the House.
1771 T. Smollett Humphry Clinker I. 185 He has his town-house, and his country-house, his coach, and his postchaise.
1825 T. Hook Sayings & Doings 2nd Ser. I. 284 I have no other town house to offer.
1888 G. Saintsbury Marlborough x. 203 Tradition..assigns the fine Georgian house now used as the judge's lodgings as having been built by the Duke for a town house.
1944 B. Peake in R. Greenhalgh Pract. Builder xvii. 440/2 Whereas the country house was usually surrounded by many acres of land, the town house had of necessity to be near to its neighbour.
2000 Birmingham Post (Nexis) 1 Mar. 19 He never lived there himself, preferring to stay at his town house in Edgbaston Street.
3.
a. A tall terraced house with three or more storeys, typically of large proportions and built in a neoclassical style characteristic of the Georgian period, and usually located in a city or town (cf. sense 2).
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society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > dwelling place or abode > a dwelling > a house > types of house > [noun] > house of specific shape or style
hall-house1467
longhouse1643
bungalow1676
single housea1684
tower-house1687
villa1755
box1773
cottage orné1774
villarette1792
mews1805
cottage1808
terrace house1817
casita1822
villa dwelling1833
villa residence1833
box-house1846
six-roomer1853
terrace1854
tembe1860
moat house1871
parlour house1871
row house1871
salt-box1876
trullo1898
townhouse1900
colonial1903
semi1912
Cape Cod1916
bungaloid1927
semi-detached1928
ranchette1938
solar house1946
rambler1947
rancher1950
ranch1951
tunnel-back1957
sidesplit1958
two-up-and-two-downer1958
two-up two-down1958
semi-det1960
A-frame1963
townhouse1965
tri-level1965
link house1968
split1970
dormer bungalow1977
1900 Studio 18 36/1 The house, which is a corner one in Park Circus, is apparently the conventional Neo-classic town house of a generation or less ago.
1929 G. Webb in R. Fry et al. Georgian Art 28 Balconies..are more often to be seen on town houses, where the chief entertaining room is on the first floor.
1935 W. R. Agard New Archit. Sculpt. vii. 58 Most of our architects have pursued their policy of..adapting ‘period styles’: the English cottage, Georgian town house, Spanish or Italian villa.
1972 Times 29 Jan. 24/8 (advt.) A classical town house, similar to those found in the Belgrave Square, Carlton House Terrace or Regents Park kind of area.
1984 New Yorker 19 Nov. 31/1 In 1903, the neo-Renaissance townhouses of Mount Morris Park West were compared favorably with the mansions of Fifth Avenue.
2012 J. Sheffield Educating Jack iv. 68 We parked outside an elegant three-storey townhouse in Henrietta Street overlooking the park.
b. Originally North American. A modern home of medium size located on a housing development.Townhouses of this type may be built in any of a variety of styles, although they are typically not detached. In North America the term typically denotes a unit (in a housing development) that has more than one storey and shares walls with other units but has its own entrance on the outside. In the United Kingdom it frequently denotes a house built in imitation of the style described in sense 3a.
ΘΚΠ
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > dwelling place or abode > a dwelling > a house > types of house > [noun] > house of specific shape or style
hall-house1467
longhouse1643
bungalow1676
single housea1684
tower-house1687
villa1755
box1773
cottage orné1774
villarette1792
mews1805
cottage1808
terrace house1817
casita1822
villa dwelling1833
villa residence1833
box-house1846
six-roomer1853
terrace1854
tembe1860
moat house1871
parlour house1871
row house1871
salt-box1876
trullo1898
townhouse1900
colonial1903
semi1912
Cape Cod1916
bungaloid1927
semi-detached1928
ranchette1938
solar house1946
rambler1947
rancher1950
ranch1951
tunnel-back1957
sidesplit1958
two-up-and-two-downer1958
two-up two-down1958
semi-det1960
A-frame1963
townhouse1965
tri-level1965
link house1968
split1970
dormer bungalow1977
1965 Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) 13 July 13 The City Planning Commission..is to receive a proposed ordinance permitting the development of privately owned town houses.
1968 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 17 Feb. 5/3 It would include 1,800 dwellings comprising apartments, maisonettes and townhouses for 5,600 people.
1971 Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg) 27 Mar. (Home Owner) 7/2 City dwellers are gravitating towards high density living (flat complexes, town houses).
1971 Ideal Home Apr. 69/2 The modern terrace, even under the pretty name of ‘town house’, is not popular.
1977 Telegraph (Brisbane) 28 Oct. 49/3 The townhouse is a two-storey ‘unit’ which features a separate courtyard and more privacy than a home unit.
1983 Ebony Oct. 116/2 She..chose a townhouse in a cooperative development in a Chicago suburb.
2007 Sunday Times (Nexis) 21 Oct. (Features section) 6 [They] are already enjoying the benefits of downsizing. Earlier this year, they swapped their 200-year-old three-bedroom cottage..for a three-bedroom new-build townhouse on a Rydon development.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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