a1425 (?a1400) G. Chaucer Romaunt Rose (Hunterian) (1891) l. 1132 A yong man full of pmelyhede [1532 Thynne semelyhede]..His lust was mych in housholding [Fr. en biaus ostiez Maintenir moult se delitoit].

a1456 (?1417) J. Lydgate Minor Poems (1934) ii. 658 (MED) For soþely nowe þagreable sonne Of housholding and fulsum haboundaunce Eclipsid is.

1565–73 T. Cooper Thesaurus at Consuetudo Cicero translated Xenophons booke of housholding into the latine tongue.

1569 J. Sanford tr. H. C. Agrippa Of Vanitie Artes & Sci. 107 Economie, or housholdinge cannot truely be termed neether Art nor Science.

1643 W. Lithgow Present Surveigh London & Englands State sig. C2^v Wishing and woulding (we say) makes poore housholding.

1683 A. Marsh Confession New Married Couple vii. 144 The good woman by this means increaseth to more knowledge of housholding affairs.

1779 J. P. Fabricius Tamiḻum aṅkilēcum māyirukkiṟu akarāti: Malabar & Eng. Dict. 54/2 Housholding, oeconomy, house-keeping.

1843 C. G. F. Gore Mod. Chivalry I. xi. 108 A man..has only to covet, for the partner of his remaining days, a lady-like, quiet, well-informed companion, who will..relieve him from all cares of householding.

1871 Contemp. Rev. Mar. 507 According to the baseness of our common language, economy has ceased to mean householding, but only stinting and clipping.

1797 Crit. Rev. June 161 Without pledging ourselves to the plans either of universal suffrage or suffrage by householding,..the present plan of representation is an alarming and dangerous innovation.

1859 A. Trollope Bertrams ii. vii. 139 They are mostly a come-and-go class of beings, to whom the possession of furniture and the responsibilities of householding would be burdensome.

1884 W. E. Gladstone Speech in Comm. 28 Feb. There will be a fourfold occupation franchise, or householding franchise.

1920 Amer. Woman Aug. 18/2 Eileen, gazing at him with glorified eyes, saw in him potential elements of respectable householding and dignified fatherhood.

1948 Times 16 Mar. 5/6 In 1918 residence, as distinct from householding, became the qualification for all male voters of 21.

1998 Town & Country Planning 67 4/3 The vital shift in householding in the next century will be the introduction of the principle of dweller control to rented housing.

?1387 T. Wimbledon Serm. (Corpus Cambr.) (1967) 61 (MED) Lik is þe kyngdom of heuene to an housholdynge man þat wente out first on þe morwe to hire werkemen into his vine.

1621 Greeuous Grones for Poore 11 The wise Housholding Husbandman, will suffer no ydle persons in his house.

1831 Times 8 Oct. 1/4 He contended, that by creating an immense body of householding electors, they were not restoring the old constitution, but that they were erecting an entirely new one.

1851 C. Dickens Our Watering Place in Househ. Words 2 Aug. 434/2 The householding population of our Watering Place.

1871 G. MacDonald Wks. Fancy & Imagination II. 4 Householding Nature from her treasures brought Things old and new.

1916 W. D. Howells Years of my Youth 211 That public market was of a sumptuous variety and abundance, as I can testify from a visit paid it with a householding friend.

1971 Social Probl. 19 11/2 Women are thus important among the householding classes as exchange property, and hence are closely guarded so as not to lose their market value.

2004 Independent 28 Aug. 44/1 The classic millionaire stereotype which, sadly, does not apply to any of my householding friends in London, who..always appear to be skint.