Habitation Meaning
/ˌhæb.ɪˈteɪ.ʃən/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounThe act of inhabiting; state of inhabiting or dwelling, or of being inhabited; occupancy.
nounA place of abode; settled dwelling; residence; house.
Sentence Examples
Certain industries advocated creating megastructures in space for habitation with artificial gravity.
Some desert areas in Algeria are completely unfit for human habitation.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The cave was used as a ____ by early humans for thousands of years.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The old ruins of the ancient village showed clear signs of human ____ dating back thousands of years.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English habitacioun, from Old French habitacion, abitacion (“act of dwelling”), from Latin habitātiōnem, accusative of Latin habitātiō.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"And there have been Common-wealths that having no more Territory, than hath served them for habitation, have neverthelesse, not onely maintained, but also encreased their Power, partly by the labour of trading from one place to another, and partly by selling the Manifactures, whereof the Materials were brought in from other places."
— 1651, Thomas Hobbes, chapter 24, in Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London: […] [William Wilson] for Andrew Crooke, […], →OCLC:
"Witness this new-made world, another Heaven
From Heaven-gate not far, founded in view
On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea;
Of amplitude almost immense, with stars
Numerous, and every star perhaps a world
Of destined habitation […]"
— 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
"The few miserable hovels that shewed some marks of human habitation, were now of still rarer occurrence; and, at length, as we began to ascend a huge and uninterrupted swell of moorland, they totally disappeared."
— 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter [XIV], in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, pages 314–315:
"Now, however, the windows in the houses began one by one to be lit up, giving a greater sense of habitation and humanity."
— 1907, G. K. Chesterton, chapter 12, in The Man Who Was Thursday:
"And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name."
— c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The cave was used as a ____ by early humans for thousands of years.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The old ruins of the ancient village showed clear signs of human ____ dating back thousands of years.