Etymology

houseless

H4O1U1S1E1L1E1S1S1

Today it means: Lacking a house, or, by extension, a residence or place of refuge in general; thus, having no home. Full definition →

Middle English housles ← Old English *hūslēas ← Proto-West Germanic *hūslaus
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*hūsalausaz
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*hūslaus
  3. Old English · inherited from*hūslēas
  4. Middle English · inherited fromhousles
  5. English todayhouseless

From Middle English housles, from Old English *hūslēas, from Proto-West Germanic *hūslaus, from Proto-Germanic *hūsalausaz, equivalent to house + -less. Cognate with West Frisian húsleas (“houseless”), Dutch huisloos (“houseless”), German hauslos (“houseless”), Danish husløs (“houseless”), Swedish huslös (“houseless”), Icelandic húslaus (“houseless”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.