housework

US/ˈhaʊsˌwɝk/

nounB1+Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,506 of 15,258leans spoken

Housework is all the unpaid jobs at home — washing, cleaning, tidying. Do the housework, share the housework, hours of housework.

It is uncountable: some housework, not a housework. Chores is the informal word and covers the same ground. Housework is one of the standard subjects in research on unequal division of labour, because it is measurable, endless and unevenly shared. Note that housework means the cleaning and tidying, while homework is what a pupil takes home — two words a syllable apart and constantly confused by learners.

Definitions of housework

1nounhouseworkThe unpaid jobs of cleaning and tidying a home.B1+
“She did the housework on Saturday mornings, vacuuming, dusting and changing the beds.”
synonyms: chores

housework is domestic work.

Also accepted in games: chores

Where it comes from

From house + work. Cognate with Dutch huiswerk (“homework”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Around the House, Cleaning & Housework

Practise this word

housework in the wild

Friedan coined the phrase "feminine mystique" to describe the assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children.
The Feminine Mystique
Reproductive labor or work is often associated with care giving and domestic housework roles including cleaning, cooking, child care, and the unpaid domestic labor force.
Reproductive labor
The Sociology of Housework is a 1974 non-fiction book by Ann Oakley that contains her research from the 1960s about women and housework.
The Sociology of Housework

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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