Definition of "home"

A dwelling.

1. One’s own dwelling place; the house or structure in which one lives; especially the house in which one lives with one's family; the habitual abode of one’s family.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • And the diſciples went awaye agayne vnto their awne home.

     1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], John xx:, folio clj, recto

   • Thither for ease and soft repose we come: / Home is the sacred refuge of our life; / Secured from all approaches, but a wife.

     1808, John Dryden, edited by Walter Scott, The Works of John Dryden

   • Home! home! sweet, sweet home! / There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

     1822, John Howard Payne, Home! Sweet Home!

   • If we now say that "woman's place is in the home," it is not because men put her there, but because the home became the capitol of women's mysteries.

     1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 132

   • Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge.

     2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28

2. The place (residence, settlement, country, etc.), where a person was born and/or raised; childhood or parental home; home of one’s parents or guardian.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The rights listed in the UNCRC cover all areas of children's lives such as their right to have a home and their right to be educated.

     2004, Jean Harrison, Home

3. The abiding place of the affections, especially of the domestic affections.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • He enter’d in the house—his home no more, / For without hearts there is no home; […]

     1821, George Gordon Byron, Don Juan‎, canto III

4. A house that has been made home-like, to suit the comfort of those who live there.  examples

5. A place of refuge, rest or care; an asylum.  examples

6. (by extension) The grave; the final rest; also, the native and eternal dwelling place of the soul.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • […] because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: […]

     1769, King James Bible, Oxford Standard text, Ecclesiastes 12:5

7. (by extension) Anything that serves the functions of a home, as comfort, safety, sense of belonging, etc.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The rights of modern transsexual women and men to live in the sex that is "home".

     2007 January 10, Leslie Feinberg, “1976 WWP pamphlet found answers in Marxism”, in Workers World‎

One’s native land; the place or country in which one dwells; the place where one’s ancestors dwell or dwelt.  quotations  examples

The locality where a thing is usually found, or was first found, or where it is naturally abundant; habitat; seat.  quotations  examples

A focus point.

1. (board games) The ultimate point aimed at in a progress; the goal.  examples

2. (baseball) Home plate.  examples

3. (lacrosse) The place of a player in front of an opponent’s goal; also, the player.  examples

4. (Internet) The landing page of a website; the site's homepage.  examples

5. (music, informal) The chord at which a melody starts and to which it can resolve.  examples

(computing) Clipping of home directory.  examples

(of animals, transitive) To return to its owner.  examples

(always with "in on", transitive) To seek or aim for something.  quotations  examples

Of, from, or pertaining to one’s dwelling or country; domestic; not foreign  examples

(now rare, except in phrases) That strikes home; direct, pointed.

(obsolete) Personal, intimate.  quotations

(sports) Relating to the home team (the team at whose venue a game is played).  examples

To one's home

1. To one's place of residence or one's customary or official location  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • He made no complaint of his ill-fortune, but only repeated in a quiet voice, with a pathos of which he was himself evidently unconscious, "I want to get home to Ninety-second Street, Philadelphia."

     1863, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches‎

   • Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.

     1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], page 16

2. To one's place of birth  examples

3. To the place where it belongs; to the end of a course; to the full length  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home: […]

     c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i]

   • Eventually she managed to slide the lid of the pencil-box right home and the newt was hers. Then, on second thoughts, she opened the lid just the tiniest fraction so that the creature could breathe.

     1988, Roald Dahl, Matilda

4. (Internet) To the home page  examples

At or in one's place of residence or one's customary or official location; at home  quotations  examples

To a full and intimate degree; to the heart of the matter; fully, directly.  quotations  examples

(UK, soccer) into the goal  quotations  examples

(nautical) into the right, proper or stowed position  examples