habitation

From Middle English habitacioun, from Old French habitacion, abitacion (“act of dwelling”), from Latin habitātiōnem, accusative of Latin habitātiō.

• IPA^(key): /ˌhæb.ɪˈteɪ.ʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

habitation (countable and uncountable, plural habitations)

1. (uncountable) The act of inhabiting; state of inhabiting or dwelling, or of being inhabited; occupancy.
   • 1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part 1, Chapter 24,

     And there have been Common-wealths that having no more Territory, than hath served them for habitation, have neverthelesse, not onely maintained, but also encreased their Power, partly by the labour of trading from one place to another, and partly by selling the Manifactures, whereof the Materials were brought in from other places.

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 7,

     Witness this new-made world, another Heaven

     From Heaven-gate not far, founded in view

     On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea;

     Of amplitude almost immense, with stars

     Numerous, and every star perhaps a world

     Of destined habitation […]

   • 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy, Volume 2, Chapter 10,

     The few miserable hovels that showed some marks of human habitation, were now of still rarer occurrence; and at length, as we began to ascend an uninterrupted swell of moorland, they totally disappeared.

   • 1907, G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, Chapter 12,

     Now, however, the windows in the houses began one by one to be lit up, giving a greater sense of habitation and humanity.

2. (countable) A place of abode; settled dwelling; residence; house.
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene 1,

     And as imagination bodies forth

     The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

     Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

     A local habitation and a name.

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Exodus 35:3,

     Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Book I, Chapter 6,

     Mrs Deborah, having disposed of the child according to the will of her master, now prepared to visit those habitations which were supposed to conceal its mother.

   • 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Book 5, The Pastor, p. 219

     How gay the Habitations that adorn

     This fertile Valley! Not a House but seems

     To give assurance of content within;

   • 1948, Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country, New York: Scribner, 1987, Chapter 10,

     And this is Shanty Town, my friend. ¶ Even here the children laugh in the narrow lanes that run between these tragic habitations.

3. A group, lodge, or company, as of the Primrose League.
4. (Louisiana French) A farm.

• See also Thesaurus:abode

• ^{(mute h)} IPA^(key): /a.bi.ta.sjɔ̃/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔ̃
• Homophone: habitations

habitation f (plural habitations)

1. dwelling (a place or house in which a person lives)
2. inhabitation (act of inhabiting)
3. (Louisiana) farm, plantation, ranch

• “habitation” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).