These words refer to structures in which people live or work. House refers generally to any sort of structure meant for living in. though it may classically call up an image of a free-standing, one-family structure of moderate size, it can apply to a whole spectrum of habitations, from those considerably more to those considerably less extensive than this midpoint: the baronet’s fifty-room country house ; They bought a split-level house in the new development; a neat little weatherboard house ; rows of grimy tenement houses . In informal use the word place refers to where one lives, whether it is a house or a room, flat or other division of a larger structure. A farm may be referred to as one’s place in this sense.

• She takes the lift to the fifth floor whenever she goes to play at Janie’s place ; My place is six miles out of town.

Dwelling is a more formal substitute for house and has fewer connotations, referring solely to any structure (or, less often, to part of one) where people live. Its formality, however, makes it sound odd in other contexts than sociological discussion or the parlance of the building industry: a study that compared children living in suburban separated dwellings with those in inner-city terrace houses ; contractors who are equipped to mass-produce middle income dwellings on a vast scale. Even in these uses, the word may sound like an unnecessarily inflated evasion of house . The word also can have an aura of faded lyricism or religiosity, in imitation of its valid use in the King James Bible: the simple dwellings of upright men.

Roof and shelter are more informal and more colourful substitutes for house than dwelling , both stressing the minimal factors of utility or protection given by any sort of structure. Roof is a synecdoche for the whole house : two families sharing the same roof . But it may suggest temporary accommodation rather than permanent living quarters: anxious to get a roof over their heads by nightfall. Shelter is useful as a general word with which to group together all living structures, permanent or temporary: man’s basic needs of food, clothing and shelter . It may even refer to any sort of protective retreat: a tree that provided shelter from the rain; to take shelter . Used as a specific reference to a particular structure, it is likely to suggest something rude or improvised: They collected driftwood to build a beach shelter . Housing is a general word referring to the supplying of or demand for living space of any sort: a new housing development on the edge of the city; legislation in the areas of housing and education.

Building refers concretely to an actual structure, but it is not restricted, like house, to those designed or used as living space: farm buildings that included the farmhouse, a milking shed and a silo. Premises is a technical term in insurance, legal or criminological parlances. It may refer to a tract of land with buildings on it; to a house , building or part of a house ; or to the space occupied by a business: a policy insuring the premises against fire; suspicious characters seen on the premises . Sometimes it is used outside these contexts with comic effect: He got his golf clubs from the cupboard in the hope of getting off the premises without being seen.