Dictionary

halfway house en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (General-American) audio

Etymology

The term in its original sense (the literal one) was clearly already a well-established term when Samuel Pepys mentioned a prominent example in his diary in 1662.

Meanings

1. A supervised residential facility that provides a structured transitional environment for people moving from institutional care, incarceration, or treatment back into the community.
   • She added that Van Houten will head to a halfway house for about a year after her release. 2023 July 11, “Manson follower Leslie Van Houten released from prison after 53 years”, in The Guardian:
2. (figuratively) A halfway point towards achieving a goal.
   • […] the Plan incorporates in proper combination every available modern technique, including extensive electrification on the new standard high-voltage a.c. system at a frequency of 50 cycles; main-line diesel traction as a half-way house to electrification; lightweight diesel trains for secondary and branch services; and a smaller wagon fleet doing more work by the use of continuous brakes in conjunction with modernised terminals and marshalling yards. 1958 January 14, 'Borderer', “Ten Years of British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 15:
   • I consider the establishment and success of their government [i.e., the French revolutionaries' government] as necessary to stay up our own and to prevent it from falling back to that kind of Halfway-house, the English constitution. 1791 February 4, Thomas Jefferson, [Letter from Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, 4 February 1791], U.S. National Archives:
   • The deal represents a halfway house to driver-only operation, as seen elsewhere - for example, on Thameslink, where the driver is the only member of staff who must be aboard the train. 2021 April 21, Philip Haigh, “As one strike ends, trouble starts to flare up elsewhere...”, in RAIL, number 929, page 56:
3. (literally) An inn reached about midway through a journey.
   • At last parted, and my wife and I by coach to the Opera […] Thence to Tower-wharf, and there took boat, and we all walked to Halfeway House,² and there eat and drank, and were pleasant, and so finally home again in the evening, and so good night, this being a very pleasant life that we now lead, and have long done; the Lord be blessed, and make us thankful. But, though I am much against too much spending, yet I do think it best to enjoy some degree of pleasure now that we have health, money, and opportunity, rather than to leave pleasures to old age or poverty, when we cannot have them so properly. [Footnote in 1893] ²The Halfway House, Rotherhithe, was a place of entertainment frequently visited by Pepys on his way to Deptford, towards which it was a halfway house. 1662 May 29 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “May 20th, 1662”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume II, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893, →OCLC, page 224:
   • This meeting was held on October 12, 1835, at the Windmill Inn, the halfway house between the two towns. 1958 January 14, Charles E. Lee, “The Dundee & Arbroath Railway - 1”, in Railway Magazine, page 24:
4. (figuratively) Any place of calm and respite reached during a journey.
   • Even to-day Zakro is still the principal half-way house for sailing craft between the Ægean and the north coast of Africa. 1907, Ronald M. Burrows, The Discoveries In Crete, page 26:

Forms

Hypernyms

house · inn · hotel · coaching inn · roadhouse

Relateds

Midway

Translations (8)

ru дом на полдоро́ге (temporary residence) · cs dům na půli cesty (temporary residence) · sv halvvägshus (temporary residence) · fi tukiasuntola (temporary residence) · cmn 过渡住所 (temporary residence) · ru дом на полпути́ (temporary residence) · fi tukikoti (temporary residence) · fi tukiasunto (temporary residence)