What does housekeep mean?
Housekeep is a verb meaning to maintain a home by performing or managing its routine domestic duties. Its uses include cleaning, cooking, organizing, and caring for the practical needs of a household, as well as managing a home more generally. A person who does this work may be called a housekeeper, while housekeeping names the duties or the activity itself. The word is less common than the noun housekeeping and often has a slightly old-fashioned or literary tone, particularly because it belongs to a vocabulary historically associated with domestic workers and household management. It is not restricted to women, although modern speakers may recognize it chiefly from older usage. Housekeep can also be used when a person or paid helper takes responsibility for a household: someone may housekeep for relatives, employers, or tenants. The verb is most natural in relatively formal contexts, while everyday speakers usually choose maintain, manage, keep house, or simply clean. Together, these senses make housekeep a compact and traditional expression for keeping a home functioning.
verbTo perform household duties, such as cleaning and cooking, or to manage and maintain a home.
- To perform the duties of maintaining a home, especially cleaning, cooking, and managing routine domestic tasks.
- To manage or run a household.
"After the children left home, she continued to housekeep for the family."
"She housekeeps for her elderly parents three times a week."
"They have enough money to employ someone to housekeep for them."
Housekeep compresses an entire domestic routine into two syllables: keep the house running.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of housekeep
Housekeep is an English compound formed from house and keep, with keep used in the sense of maintaining or managing. Its meaning is closely connected with the older expression keep house, meaning to maintain or run a household. Keep has Germanic ancestry, while keeper and keeping are later English formations from the same base and are among its closest relatives.
Related word forms
How housekeep is actually used
Housekeep is relatively uncommon in modern everyday English and sounds more familiar in British English, older prose, and formal or literary contexts. It normally functions intransitively and can carry historical associations with domestic work that make it sound old-fashioned.
Easily confused with housekeep
Housekeep is a verb describing the activity of maintaining a home, whereas a housekeeper is a person employed or expected to perform that work.
Housekeep is the verb; housekeeping is the more common noun referring to household duties or the organization and performance of those duties.