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Glite Dictionary
🏘️ Shared living 🏘️ Community-based
cohousing

cohousing

1 5.2
A community where people live in private homes and share common spaces
  • noun
  • /ˈkoʊˌhaʊzɪŋ/
translation icon : cohousing
  • For example, ElderSpirit, a senior cohousing community in VA, identifies as an intentional community.
  • cohousing communities
  • senior cohousing

Examples

  • Residents in cohousing developments often collaborate on community events while having their own private homes.

  • (population 7,000) is meant to serve as a replicable prototype for other ElderSpirit cohousing communities.

    Academic text (1999)

  • I have a Physics PhD, an MS in CS, and have done research, lived in cohousing communities, run a business, and designed technology products.

    Blog text (24)

  • But unlike the projected rental units of Jubilados, FOCIS has embraced a "cohousing" model.

    Academic text (1999)

  • In the early 2000s, the volunteer financial and legal work she undertook in Roberts Creek contributed—with the help of many others—to the first rural cohousing community successfully built in Canada.

    Blog text (31)

  • Many families in the neighborhood chose to live in a cohousing community to enjoy shared gardens and activities.

  • The new cohousing project features eco-friendly designs and communal spaces for residents to gather.

Synonyms

living arrangement
vscohousing
5 3.4

How people live together in a home and who shares it

refers to a particular community type with private homes and shared spaces
communal living
vscohousing
1 3.8

A life where people share a home, chores, and costs

emphasizes private homes alongside shared common spaces and facilities

How Communal

commune
29 5.0
coop
9 5.3
cohousing
1 5.2

Surface Forms

cohousing singular
cohousings plural

Morphology

cohousing = housing (transparent) = co + house + ing

The meaning is directly built from the productive prefix 'co-' (together/shared) plus the common noun 'housing', yielding 'shared housing'.

Etymology

Cohousing comes from the prefix co- meaning 'together' and housing meaning 'homes', like in cooperate, so it names a way of living where people keep private homes but share common spaces like kitchens and gardens.