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Habitation vs Dwelling vs Abode vs Residence vs Domicile vs Home vs House

Habitation, dwellingaboderesidencedomicilehomehouse are comparable when they mean the place where one lives.

All may apply to an actual structure or part of a structure in which one lives, and all but the last also may apply to the place (as a farm, a village, or a nation) where such a structure is situated.

Habitation suggests permanency of occupancy and may apply to a building or to an inhabited place.

Dwelling typically refers to a building or shelter for a single family or individual, often as opposed to a building used in business.

Abode may apply to a building, but more often it designates a place as a seat or center of occupancy. Distinctively, abode may stress transience.

Residence in reference to a building may be somewhat formal and convey a suggestion of dignity and substance. But residence also may refer to an area or place (as a town or state) where one lives and in such use carries specific legal implications (as of actual occupancy or intention to remain).

Domicile in reference to a building carries no special connotations. In wider reference to a place it may be quite neutral or it may have very definite legal implications (as of being the seat of one’s principal and permanent home and therefore the place where one has a settled connection for such important legal purposes as determination of civil status and jurisdiction to impose personal judgments and taxes) in which it is often specifically contrasted with residence.

Home, like the foregoing terms, is used either of a structure or a place of residence or sometimes of origin, but of all these terms home distinctively conveys the notion of one’s dwelling as the seat and center of family life and the focus of domestic affections. Unlike the other terms house is not used of a place as distinct from a structure; basically it applies to a building used or intended for use as a dwelling place and, especially as compared with home, is a very general and neutral term; thus, a landlord’s house may become the home of a tenant.