"it takes a heap of living to make a house a home" meaning in English

See it takes a heap of living to make a house a home in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Etymology: From the poem "A Heap o' Livin'" (1916) by Edgar A. Guest. Head templates: {{head|en|proverb|head=}} it takes a heap of living to make a house a home, {{en-proverb}} it takes a heap of living to make a house a home
  1. (chiefly US) A house is simply a physical structure and does not count as a home until significant events in the inhabitants' lives have occurred there over a substantial period of time, and they have developed an emotional bond to the house and its immediate environs. Wikipedia link: Edgar A. Guest Tags: US Synonyms: it takes a heap o' livin' to make a house a home, it takes a lot of living to make a house a home Related terms: a house is not a home, home is where the heart is
    Sense id: en-it_takes_a_heap_of_living_to_make_a_house_a_home-en-proverb-TdWHIr4b Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header, English proverbs

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for it takes a heap of living to make a house a home meaning in English (2.8kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the poem \"A Heap o' Livin'\" (1916) by Edgar A. Guest.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "it takes a heap of living to make a house a home",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "it takes a heap of living to make a house a home",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1973, Government of Canada, House of Commons Debates, Official Report, Volume 3, p. 2476 (Google search result)",
          "text": "We often hear the famous lines quoted that it takes a heap of living to make a house a home, but we have to recognize that the family cannot do it without a house in which to start."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Carlton T. Mitchell, Values in Teaching and Professional Ethics, page 123",
          "text": "It may take a heap of living to make a house a home, as the old cross-stitched samplers used to urge, but a commission-collecting realtor cannot deposit a six percent cut of a seller's hearth sentiments in a bank account.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Max L. Stackhouse, On Moral Business, page 28",
          "text": "Just as \"it takes a heap of living to make a house a home,\" and just as it takes character to turn an individual into a reliable person, so it takes sustained moral human interactions to make any institution viable.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A house is simply a physical structure and does not count as a home until significant events in the inhabitants' lives have occurred there over a substantial period of time, and they have developed an emotional bond to the house and its immediate environs."
      ],
      "id": "en-it_takes_a_heap_of_living_to_make_a_house_a_home-en-proverb-TdWHIr4b",
      "links": [
        [
          "physical",
          "physical"
        ],
        [
          "structure",
          "structure"
        ],
        [
          "significant",
          "significant"
        ],
        [
          "event",
          "event"
        ],
        [
          "emotional",
          "emotional"
        ],
        [
          "bond",
          "bond"
        ],
        [
          "environs",
          "environs"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US) A house is simply a physical structure and does not count as a home until significant events in the inhabitants' lives have occurred there over a substantial period of time, and they have developed an emotional bond to the house and its immediate environs."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "a house is not a home"
        },
        {
          "word": "home is where the heart is"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "it takes a heap o' livin' to make a house a home"
        },
        {
          "word": "it takes a lot of living to make a house a home"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Edgar A. Guest"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "it takes a heap of living to make a house a home"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the poem \"A Heap o' Livin'\" (1916) by Edgar A. Guest.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "it takes a heap of living to make a house a home",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "it takes a heap of living to make a house a home",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "a house is not a home"
    },
    {
      "word": "home is where the heart is"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proverbs",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1973, Government of Canada, House of Commons Debates, Official Report, Volume 3, p. 2476 (Google search result)",
          "text": "We often hear the famous lines quoted that it takes a heap of living to make a house a home, but we have to recognize that the family cannot do it without a house in which to start."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Carlton T. Mitchell, Values in Teaching and Professional Ethics, page 123",
          "text": "It may take a heap of living to make a house a home, as the old cross-stitched samplers used to urge, but a commission-collecting realtor cannot deposit a six percent cut of a seller's hearth sentiments in a bank account.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Max L. Stackhouse, On Moral Business, page 28",
          "text": "Just as \"it takes a heap of living to make a house a home,\" and just as it takes character to turn an individual into a reliable person, so it takes sustained moral human interactions to make any institution viable.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A house is simply a physical structure and does not count as a home until significant events in the inhabitants' lives have occurred there over a substantial period of time, and they have developed an emotional bond to the house and its immediate environs."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "physical",
          "physical"
        ],
        [
          "structure",
          "structure"
        ],
        [
          "significant",
          "significant"
        ],
        [
          "event",
          "event"
        ],
        [
          "emotional",
          "emotional"
        ],
        [
          "bond",
          "bond"
        ],
        [
          "environs",
          "environs"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US) A house is simply a physical structure and does not count as a home until significant events in the inhabitants' lives have occurred there over a substantial period of time, and they have developed an emotional bond to the house and its immediate environs."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Edgar A. Guest"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "it takes a heap o' livin' to make a house a home"
    },
    {
      "word": "it takes a lot of living to make a house a home"
    }
  ],
  "word": "it takes a heap of living to make a house a home"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-22 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (fc4f0c7 and c937495). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.