late 14c., "members of a family collectively (including servants)," also "furniture and articles belonging to a house;" see house (n.) + hold (n.1). As an adjective, "of or pertaining to house and family, domestic," from late 14c. Compare householder. Household word, one that is in very familiar use, is from 1590s; variant household name is from 1862.

late 14c., "head of a household or family; one who manages a household;" by mid-15c. as "one who holds or occupies a house as his dwelling," from household. There are similar formations in other Germanic languages (German Haushälter) also often with corresponding verbal forms (German haushalten) but not in English.

late 14c., "pertaining to a household," from Anglo-French meignial, from Old French mesnie "household," earlier mesnede, from Vulgar Latin *mansionata, from Latin mansionem "dwelling" (see mansion). Compare Middle English meine "a household, household servants" (c. 1300; also "chessmen"), from Anglo-French meine, Old French maisniee. From early 15c. as "belonging to a retinue or train of servants." Sense of "lowly, humble, servile, suited to a servant" is recorded by 1670s.

1590s, "pertaining to management of a household," perhaps shortened from economical, or else from French économique or directly from Latin oeconomicus "of domestic economy," from Greek oikonomikos "practiced in the management of a household or family" (also the name of a treatise by Xenophon on the duties of domestic life), hence, "frugal, thrifty," from oikonomia "household management" (see economy (n.)). Meaning "relating to the science of economics" is from 1835 and now is the main sense, economical retaining the older one of "characterized by thrift."

also majordomo, "man employed to superintend a household, especially that of a sovereign or other dignitary," 1580s, via Italian maggiordomo or Spanish mayordomo, from Medieval Latin major domus "chief of the household," also "mayor of the palace" under the Merovingians, from Latin maior "greater" (see major (adj.)) + genitive of domus "house" (from PIE root *dem- "house, household").

1690s, "management of a household, domestic establishment," from French ménage, from Old French manage "household, family dwelling" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *mansionaticum "household, that which pertains to a house," from Latin mansionem "dwelling" (see mansion).

Now generally used in suggestive borrowed French phrase ménage à trois (by 1853 in English publications; by 1841 in French as the title of an opéra comique) "a domestic arrangement or relationship consisting of a husband, a wife, and the lover of one or the other," literally "household of three." The word had been in Middle English as mayngnage, maynage (c. 1300) in the senses "a household, a domestic establishment, company of persons living together in a house," but this was obsolete by c. 1500.

"one whose occupation is the making of household furniture," 1680s, from cabinet + maker.

1580s, "household manager," from French économiste; see economy + -ist. Meaning "student of political economy" is from 1804.

1640s, "to govern a household," from economy + -ize. Meaning "to spend less, be sparing in outlay" is from 1790. Related: Economized; economizing; economization; economizer.

"a domestic servant, one of a body of household servants," late 14c., meynyal; see menial (adj.).