ADJ
- beautiful, comfortable, delightful, elegant, fine, grand, handsome, lovely, luxurious, magnificent, posh, pretty, splendid
- dream
- They built their own dream house overlooking the river
- depressing, dingy, gloomy, ugly
- derelict, dilapidated, ramshackle, shabby, untidy
- detached, semi-detached, terrace/terraced
- big, enormous, gigantic, huge, large, palatial, spacious
- rambling
- It was easy to get lost in the rambling house
- little, modest, small, tiny
- They lived in a modest semi-detached house in the suburbs
- single-storey, single-storeyed, two-storey, etc.
- four-bedroom, four-bedroomed, eight-room, eight-roomed, etc.
- gabled, half-timbered, red-brick, thatched
- exclusive, expensive
- private
- council (= rented from the local council)
- rented
- empty, unoccupied, vacant
- country, suburban, town
- great, manor, mansion
- The great house stood on the edge of the village
- farm (also farmhouse), ranch
- ancestral
- communal
- summer
- tree
- halfway, safe
- a halfway house for prisoners returning to society The police provided a safe house for the informer
VERB + HOUSE
- live in, occupy
- a house occupied by students
- share
- She shares a house with three other nurses
- buy, rent
- sell
- let (out)
- We let out our house when we moved to America
- repossess
- Their house was repossessed when they couldn't keep up their mortgage payments
- move, move into, move out of
- It's stressful moving house
- set up
- They want to set up house together
- keep
- She kept house (= cooked, cleaned, etc.) for her elderly parents
- play (at)
- The children were playing house, giving dinner to their teddies
- build
- demolish, knock down, tear down
- maintain
- decorate, do up, redecorate, refurbish, renovate
- They bought a dilapidated house when they got married, and are gradually doing it up
- furnish
- insulate, rewire
- extend
- We're hoping to extend the house
HOUSE + VERB
- be situated, lie, stand
- The house stood a short distance from the wood
- face sth, overlook sth
- The house faces south, making the most of the sun. houses overlooking the park
- loom
- The house loomed over him as he waited at the front door
- be worth sth
- collapse, fall down
- burn down, catch fire
- come into view
HOUSE + NOUN
- agent
- buyer, owner
- The bank offers attractive rates to first-time house buyers
- tenant
- building, construction
- decoration, improvement, renovation, repairs
- builder, decorator, painter
- contents
- design, plan, planning
- hunting
- move
- They helped us with our house move
- prices, rents, values
- purchase
- sales
- mortgage
- insurance
- repossession
- front, interior
- number
- keys
- guest
- call
- In the morning, the doctor makes house calls
- arrest
- The former dictator is under house arrest in his country mansion
- dust
- blaze, fire
- party, -warming
- They've moved house and have invited us to their house-warming on Saturday
- husband
- He's happy being a house husband while his wife goes out to work
- plant
- fly, mouse, sparrow, etc.
PREP
- at sb's/the ~
- I finally tracked him down at his house in London
- from ~ to ~
- She went from house to house collecting signatures for her campaign
- in a/the ~
- It was so hot outside we stayed in the house
PHRASES
- house-to-house
- Police are making house-to-house enquiries following the discovery of the body
VERB + HOUSE
- wake (up)
- You'll wake up the whole house with that noise
VERB + HOUSE
- play to
- They played to a packed house
PHRASES
- bring the house down (= please the audience very much), front-of-house (= the parts of a theatre used by the audience)
- the front-of-house staff