I can be a very literal minded person. So, when most people say roommate do they actualy mean housemate?
Yes, they do.
Depends. If they’re in college or live in an apartment, they probably mean “roommate.” If they have a house, they mean “housemate.” At my college, we had “suitemates,” which were four girls who had two separate rooms but shared a central bathroom.
Well I live in an apartment, not a house, so I don’t have housemates. I have roommates, but we all have our own rooms. I like the British term flatmate. That really fits the situation better than any of the American words.
Do you mean flatmate?
What’s the difference between a room mate and a house mate?
Technically, roommates literally share the same room. In the US it’s often used synonymously with housemate, who is someone you share an entire living space with.
When my patients say “roommate” they mean “cellie”. 
In America it often means housemate (or flat/ apartment mate). In Britain roommate means you share a room.
I can be a very literally minded person, and your Poll choices are giving me a headache.
Shouldn’t that be NO, they mean roommate and YES, they mean housemate, if we’re answering the question “When most people say roommate do they mean housemate,” and then clarifying with the modifying phrase after the comma?
In any case, I have most often in my life heard “roommate” to mean someone you share an *apartment *with. Although sharing a house isn’t an improbable usage of roommate, most people in my area don’t share houses. But in the context of college, I’d assume it’s an actual room being shared.
In my personal flavor of US English, the terms are dead-synonymous: Two unrelated people who are sharing permanent accommodations of a type generally meant for a single person or single family group.
The critical point of housemate / roommate versus other terms for cohabiting is the concept that the people are doing this as a business matter with no blood or affection relationship. They might be friendly or even friends, but they aren’t lovers or relatives.
The mating part is strongly discouraged.
I lived in a college town for more than 20 years. A roommate is an unrelated person, who is not a romantic partner, with whom you live to defray expenses. You may actually share a dorm room, or rented room in someone else’s house, a dormitory suite, or rent a house together, or share an apartment or townhouse.
The type of living space isn’t important; what is important is that you are living with this person for practical purposes, not out of affection (albeit, the person may be your best friend). You don’t describe your unmarried SO as a roommate, except maybe to your parents, or when the person is the same sex, and you aren’t sure whether you are dealing with a homophobe, and you don’t describe a relative as a roommate, even though sibs occasionally room together in college (in which case, someone might say something like “My brother is also my roommate,” I suppose, but then the intent is to say that it is a practical arrangement for finances, and not because you are in the family homestead, or your brother is disabled and needs help with daily living).
I never knew that people used “roommate” to mean housemate! I always thought it meant that you shared a bedroom, like in US colleges.
(Slightly off-topic, but I don’t think I could go to college if I lived in the US…having to share a bedroom with a complete stranger?! No thank you!)
Correct answers given above: in the United States, a “roommate” is someone who shares your residential accommodations, regardless of whether you actually sleep in the same room.
I’ve never had to share a room (including college- I rented a house), but I’ve had several “roommates,” including my wife.
Most college dorms have private room options, you just have to pay more, and get your application in on time.
Also, while it’s pretty common for US universities to have on-campus living rules for freshmen (my college said freshmen had to live on campus, or with a relative who was over 25 and already a resident-- that was mostly to allow for local students who wanted to continue to live with their parents for their freshman year); however, there were exceptions for freshmen who had children or were married, who could apply for the graduate student family residences, and if they didn’t get one, could get a variance and live off-campus, and it didn’t apply to people over a certain age-- either 21 or 25, I forget which.
Here in Montreal, Canada, “roommate” means someone you share an apartment with. A few people use “housemate” to mean the same thing, even if it’s an apartment and not a house.
I’ve had a housemate for over a year now and I never considered it wrong to call him my roommate. I assume they’re dictionarily synonymous at this point.
The only people I know who say “housemate” are people who live in some kind of collective, like a vegan house, or a “0 footprint” house, and want you to ask about it, or else they are a little older than people who typically have a roommate, and they want you to know “roommate” isn’t a euphemism for “gay lover.”
I’m from the US and I try to distinguish between housemate and roommate. When I was sharing an apartment with a fried, I usually called her my roommate, but I did try to refer to her as a housemate.