housekeeping
part of speech
noun (uncountable)
meaning for a pupil
1) The work of looking after a home: cleaning, cooking, shopping and paying bills. tree →
2) (in hotels and hospitals) The department that cleans the rooms. tree →
3) Money set aside for running a home («the housekeeping»). tree →
4) (informal) Small tidy-up jobs in an organisation, such as updating files or checking dates. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life and lessons about the home it covers all the jobs that keep a house running. In stories, Mole takes pride in his housekeeping, and Rat is a good housekeeper. Sense 4 is used at meetings: «a few housekeeping notes before we start».
examples
- Housekeeping takes a lot of time in a big family. tree →
- Ring housekeeping and ask for more towels. tree →
- Mum keeps the housekeeping money in a jar. tree →
- Mole was proud of his tidy housekeeping. tree →
- Before the assembly, the head did some housekeeping: lost property and the bus times. tree →
- Learning housekeeping skills helps you live on your own. tree →
- She looked after all the housekeeping, prepared the meals, washed the linen. tree →
note
Uncountable: no «a», no plural. A «housekeeper» is a person paid to run a house. Everyone in a home can share the housekeeping, not only one person.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «housekeeping» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.