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Glite Dictionary
home ec

home ec

4 5.1
A school class that teaches cooking, sewing, and home skills
  • noun
  • /hoʊm ɛk/
  • Informal
translation icon : educación doméstica
  • One of the things they taught us in home ec was how to cook.
  • home ec class
  • home ec teacher
  • home ec at school

And but you know, home EC is largely gone.

Examples

  • For the Senior Citizen Tea each December, the home ec department invites and hosts about two hundred senior citizens for a pre-Christmas tea and a short program featuring music and drama.

    Academic text (1992)

  • Many students enjoy the hands-on projects in home ec, like sewing and baking.

  • - How can anybody get a D in home ec?

    WarGames (1983)

  • Why should I take home ec?

    Lean On Me (1989)

  • I bet that never happened in home ec.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • Didn't you learn in home-ec class?

    Blade Of Honor (2017)

  • Mother would ask me if I'd finished my zipper that day in home ec.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • I donated the spices to my home ec teacher at school, who was thrilled to have a basketload of expensive cooking supplies she didn't have to spend her budget on.

    Blog text (21)

  • In home ec class, we learned how to plan meals on a budget.

  • Taking home ec can help students gain essential skills for managing their own homes.

Synonyms

homemaking
vshome ec
3 2.5

Care and work to keep a house and family well

is presented as a school subject combining theory and practice
home economics
vshome ec
3 3.1

A school subject about running a home, like cooking, sewing, and managing money

is the abbreviated form often used in school subject names
domestic science
vshome ec
  • Archaic
1 4.8

School subject that teaches cooking, cleaning, sewing, and how to run a home

stresses formal classroom subject status more than everyday home practice
household arts
vshome ec
  • Archaic
3.7

Practical skills for running a home, like cooking and sewing

is framed as a taught subject that includes theory as well as practice
housecraft
vshome ec
  • Archaic
7.4

Knowing how to do household tasks like cooking and cleaning

is presented more as an academic subject rather than just hands-on skill

Surface Forms

home ec singular
home ecs plural

Morphology

home + ec

The phrase is a clipped form of 'home economics' so the constituent 'home' transparently signals domestic/domestic skills, but understanding requires recognising 'ec' as an abbreviation for 'economics'. Because 'ec' is not a full lexical item and the expansion must be known, the meaning is partly predictable but not fully derivable by an average B1 learner who only knows the surface constituents.

Etymology

The term home ec is short for home economics, literally home + economics. It comes from school classes where students learned cooking, sewing and how to manage money for a household, so home ec means 'theory and practice of homemaking' taught in school.