English for Students

English : Home and House

What is the difference between Home and House?

When you go through the newspaper, you find many houses for sale. Sometimes at street corners, you find signs saying that there is a house available for rent. A house is a place in which people live. It offers shelter. There may be thousands of houses in the city in which you live, but there is only one, which you call your home. The house which you choose to live in becomes your home. Your builder constructed a house. When you moved in, it became your home. Home is the place where your family is. It provides emotional warmth and security. A house, on the other hand, provides shelter. Usually people buy a home and sell a house. People who are away from their home often complain about being homesick, not housesick. What they lack is not a roof over their head, but the emotional warmth and security. Nowadays, every city has a home for the aged. They are not called house for the aged because these places provide not only shelter but also emotional comfort for the old people. Other common expressions in English are: There's no place like home, Home, sweet home, and Home is where the heart is. Nobody ever substitutes the word house in any of these expressions.

In fact there was but one thing wrong with the Babbit house. It was not a home.