<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>any shelter, lodging, or dwelling place.</li><li>houses collectively.</li><li>the act of one who houses or puts under shelter.</li><li>the providing of houses for a group or community: the housing of an influx of laborers.</li><li>anything that covers or protects.</li><li>Synonyms: sheath, shield, casing, covering.</li><li>Machinery: a fully enclosed case and support for a mechanism.</li><li>Carpentry: the space made in one piece of wood, or the like, for the insertion of another.</li><li>Nautical: the portion of a mast below the deck; the portion of a bowsprit aft of the forward part of the stem of a vessel; the doubling of an upper mast; a niche for a statue.</li></ul>