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abode

UK/əˈbəʊd/US/əˈboʊd/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,721 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: abodes

An abode is the place where somebody lives. A humble abode, right of abode, place of abode.

It is archaic or jocular in speech — welcome to my humble abode — but it is live legal language: the right of abode is the right to live in a country permanently, and place of abode appears on official forms. It comes from the verb abide.

M J Richardson · CC BY-SA 2.0

Definitions of abode

  1. 1nounabodeThe place where somebody lives.C1

    “He jokingly called his tiny flat above the shop his humble abode.”

abode is a dwelling.

Also accepted in games: residence

Where it comes from

Middle English abod, from abide. The word first meant a waiting or delay, then the place of staying.

  1. Old English

    *ābād

  2. Middle English

    abod

  3. English, today

    abode

Built from

  • ābīdan · Old English — to abide

From Middle English abod, abad, from Old English ābād, related to ābīdan (“to abide”); see abide. Cognate with Scots abade, abaid (“abode”). For the change of nouns, compare abode, preterite of abide.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

abode in the wild

  • Later, it became the abode of Hel, a goddess daughter of Loki, and the afterlife for her subjects, those who did not die a heroic or notable death.

    Niflheim

  • Svarga, also known as Swarga, Indraloka and Svargaloka, is the celestial abode of the devas (deities) in Hinduism.

    Svarga

  • The Arabic singular form dar, translated literally, may mean "house", "abode", "structure", "place", "land", or "country".

    Divisions of the world in Islam

  • Nationals of this class without right of abode are subject to immigration controls when entering the UK.

    British subject

  • Right of abode in Hong Kong entitles a person to live and work in the territory without any restrictions or conditions of stay.

    Right of abode in Hong Kong

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.