houseless

/ˈhau̇slə̇s/ (ame, mw)

houseless — adjective

  • houselesspositive
  • more houselesscomparative
  • most houselesssuperlative

1. having no place to live, especially as a way to describe people who sleep on str

1.形容詞C1
釋義

having no place to live, especially as a way to describe people who sleep on streets or in shelters because they cannot afford a home of their own.

例句

Volunteers handed out warm blankets to houseless families sleeping near the train station.

attributive use before a plural noun

The new charity in Taipei builds tiny wooden cabins for houseless veterans.

modifies a specific group of people

同義詞
  • homeless

    much more common; some advocates prefer 'houseless' because 'home' can exist without a building

  • unhoused

    another preferred alternative in social-policy writing, especially in North America

  • rough sleeper

    British; specifically someone sleeping outdoors, not in a shelter

反義詞
  • housed

    in social-policy contexts, means living in stable accommodation

文法句型

the + houseless (as plural noun)

be + houseless

用法筆記

Increasingly used in social-policy writing as a preferred alternative to 'homeless' because 'home' can describe an emotional bond a person still has even without a roof. Distinguish from sense 2: this sense always describes people; sense 2 describes land or settlements.

常見錯誤

❌The houseless area near the river floods every spring.
✅The area near the river has no houses and floods every spring.
💡sense 1 describes people, not places; for empty land use plain wording or sense 2.

2. describing land, an area, or a stretch of country that has no buildings on it —

2.形容詞C2
釋義

describing land, an area, or a stretch of country that has no buildings on it — empty of human dwellings rather than referring to people without somewhere to live.

例句

The travellers walked for three days across a houseless plain before reaching a village.

describes empty terrain

Andrei photographed the houseless valleys of northern Iceland for his geography textbook.

attributive: houseless + landscape noun

同義詞
  • uninhabited

    more common; means no people live there at all, not just no buildings

  • unsettled

    describes land where no community has been established

  • barren

    implies infertile as well as empty; not always interchangeable

反義詞

文法句型

houseless + landscape noun

用法筆記

Mostly literary or geographical; you rarely hear it in everyday Taiwan-English conversation. Distinguish from sense 1: this sense never describes people, only land or settlements.

常見錯誤

❌A houseless man slept in the doorway.
✅A homeless man slept in the doorway.
💡for a person without somewhere to live, use sense 1 ('houseless') or the more common 'homeless'; sense 2 only describes empty terrain.