different between run-of-the-mill vs household

English

Alternative forms

• run of the mill
• run-o’-the-mill, run o’ the mill

Etymology

From 1922; from the fact that product produced by a mill should be uniform and like that of any other similar run.

Adjective

run-of-the-mill (comparative more run-of-the-mill, superlative most run-of-the-mill)

1. (figuratively) Ordinary; not special.

   This isn’t your run-of-the-mill refrigerator; you’ll find the extra features well worth the price.

   • 1971 November 30, Martin Lapidus, Class Notes: 62, Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 72, page 26,

     The other had the most run-of-the-mill news which make some of my recent run-of-the-mill columns appear like the raciest escapist fare.

   • 1989, Punch, page 55,

     For a deeper, less familiar philosophy, you have to listen to your more run-of-the-mill dossers, and they don't come more run-of-the-mill than Ratso.

   • 1995, Alain Mérot, French Painting in the Seventeenth Century, page 42,

     In one side of the prestigious commissions, public and private, sacred and profane, which could make the name of an artist, there was a more run of the mill style of painting which already enjoyed a vast clientéle at all levels of society.

   • 2001, Gabrielle Lord, Death Delights, 2002, unnumbered page,

     Or even more run-of-the-mill murders which usually turn out to be family or business affairs and where someone's usually heard something or, in the case of the more professional killings, someone wants to do a deal.

Antonyms

• (ordinary): cream of the crop

Translations

See also

• common-or-garden (standard)

English

Etymology

From Middle English houshold, equivalent to house +? hold. Cognate with Scots houshald, housald, housell, howsell (“household”), Dutch huishouden (“household”), German Low German Huushollen (“household”), German Haushalt (“household”), Swedish hushåll (“household, family”), Norwegian husholdning (“household”).

Pronunciation

• (UK): IPA^(key): /?ha?sh??ld/
• (US): enPR: hous?h?ld, IPA^(key): /?ha?sho?ld/

Noun

household (plural households)

1. Collectively, all the persons who live in a given house; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment.
   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 5:

     Although I was a member of the royal household, I was not among the privileged few who were trained for rule.

   • 1732, Jonathan Swift, The Beasts' Confession to the Priest

     And calls, without affecting airs, / His household twice a day to prayers.

2. (obsolete) A line of ancestry; a race or house.
   • 1592, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, IV. vi. 39:

     In thee thy mother dies, our household's name, / My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.

Translations

Adjective

household (not comparable)

1. Belonging to the same house and family.
2. Found in or having its origin in a home.
3. Widely known to the public; familiar.

   a household word; a household name

Derived terms

Translations