homemade

UK/ˌ(h)əʊmˈmeɪ̯d/US/ˌhoʊmˈmeɪ̯d/

adjectiveB1Common in everyday speech and writing · #4,927 of 15,258neutral

Homemade means made at home rather than bought. Slightly uneven, and better for it.

The word is a compliment for food above all, since homemade soup and homemade bread promise care that a factory cannot give. Applied to equipment it means improvised, so a homemade repair is one done with whatever was in the shed, and there the word carries a warning. British English often writes it as two words or with a hyphen. Home-cooked and handmade are the near neighbours.

Definitions of homemade

1adjectivehomemadeMade at home rather than bought ready-made.B1
“There was homemade cake on the table.”

Where it comes from

From home + made.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 10 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

homemade in the wild

Distilled spirits are sometimes added to both commercially prepared eggnog and homemade eggnog.
Eggnog
There are many recipes (often printed on Chex cereal boxes) for homemade Chex Mix, also known as Chex Party Mix, which predates the commercial version by thirty years.
Chex Mix
In Canada, where Chex is not available, a homemade version is known as nuts and bolts.
Chex Mix
The Burundian people usually eat homemade food, from homemade vessels also used for drinking, carrying water and storing grain.
Burundian cuisine

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.

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