cohabit

UK/koʊˈhæbɪt/US/koʊˈhæbɪt/

verbC12 meaningsVery rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: cohabiting, cohabited, cohabits

To cohabit is to live together as a couple without being married. One flat, one rent book, no wedding.

The word is formal, and it comes from law and social research rather than from conversation: nobody says we cohabit, they say we live together. Where it earns its place is precision — cohabiting couples have different legal rights from married ones, and naming that difference is the job the word exists for. The noun is cohabitation. Biologists use it more loosely for two species sharing a space, and writers stretch it further still, to ideas that cohabit uneasily in one head.

Definitions of cohabit

1verbcohabitTo live together as a couple without marrying.C1
“They cohabited for six years before the wedding.”
2verbalongsideTo live alongside something else.C1
“The two species cohabit on the same reef.”

Where it comes from

Cohabit is dwelling together. Latin habitō meant to live in a place, the verb standing behind inhabit and habitation, and co- simply puts two people in it.

Latin
cohabitō
English, today
cohabit

Built from

habitō · Latin — to dwell, to live in

From Latin cohabitō; co- + habitō (“to dwell, to live in”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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