housing

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The inboard end of the bowsprit: also, that part of a mast that is below the upper or spar-deck.
• noun A covering; specifically, the trappings or caparison of a horse; especially, a complete covering used for defense or to cover and conceal defensive armor, or for ceremonial purposes only: generally in the plural. Compare trapping, bard, caparison.
• noun The leather fastened at a horse's collar to turn over the back when it rains.
• noun The act of putting in a house or under shelter.
• noun The building of houses.
• noun A collection or range of houses.
• noun Provision of house or shelter; the act of providing with houses: as, the housing of the poor.
• noun Any covering or shelter, as a protection for a vessel laid up in a dock.
• noun In carpentry, the space taken out of one piece to admit of the insertion of the extremity of another, for the purpose of connecting them.
• noun In architecture, a niche for a statue.
• noun Nautical, same as house-line.
• noun In machinery: The part of the framing which holds a journal-box in place: called in the United States a jaw.
• noun The uprights supporting the cross-slide of a planer.
• noun One of the lateral plates of the box of a car-axle; a housing-box; a journal-box.
• noun All that appertains to the house or homestead, its outbuildings, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A cover or cloth for a horse's saddle, as an ornamental or military appendage; a saddlecloth; a horse cloth; in plural, trappings.
• noun An appendage to the hames or collar of a harness.
• noun The act of putting or receiving under shelter; the state of dwelling in a habitation.
• noun That which shelters or covers; houses, taken collectively.
• noun The space taken out of one solid, to admit the insertion of part of another, as the end of one timber in the side of another.
• noun A niche for a statue.
• noun (Mach.) A frame or support for holding something in place, such as a piece of machinery, journal boxes, etc.
• noun That portion of a mast or bowsprit which is beneath the deck or within the vessel.
• noun A covering or protection, as an awning over the deck of a ship when laid up.
• noun A houseline. See Houseline.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb Present participle of house.
• noun uncountable The activity of enclosing something or providing a residence for someone.
• noun uncountable Residences, collectively.
• noun countable A mechanical component's container or covering.
• noun A cover or cloth for a horse's saddle, as an ornamental or military appendage; a saddlecloth; a horse cloth; in plural, trappings.
• noun An appendage to the hames or collar of a harness.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun structures collectively in which people are housed
• noun a protective cover designed to contain or support a mechanical component
• noun stable gear consisting of a decorated covering for a horse, especially (formerly) for a warhorse