Baffled by real estate jargon? Think the property ladder is something you climb up to clean the guttering? That a duplex is a type of cinema? Or a maison-de-maître the home of a dominatrix and her pimp? Michael Parsons has the complete A to Z guide to property speak

A is for Apartment - a word now universally used in Ireland instead of flat which has acquired, ahem, council housing connotations. Never mind that "flat" is still used in Britain to describe even the most sumptuous apartment in Mayfair. We adopted the word from Continental Europe having discovered apartment complexes on Spanish holidays. An apartment is, of course, a self-contained home that occupies only part of a building. Irish investors in New York and other US cities should know that in American English an apartment can be called a "co-op" (in which the residents own shares of a company that owns the building); or a "condominium" (condo, for short) which means residents own their apartments and share ownership of the public spaces.

B is for Bed-Sit - an apartment which consists of a large room which serves as living/sleeping/kitchen quarters with a separate shower/loo. Once ubiquitous - from Drumcondra to Kilburn - it now tends to be known as a "studio apartment". Can also be called a "bachelor apartment" (or, bachelor pad) though that term has come to mean the luxurious home - of whatever kind - owned by an affluent single man. B is also for Bungalow - bliss for many, blight for others, this detached, single storey house is a favourite of the Irish countryside. Often built on a site close to a farmhouse, with a roadside entrance hidden by a hairpin bend, and occupied by an "eldest son" and his new wife until they swap with his parents when the "oul' fella" can no longer manage the stairs. The word bungalow is derived from Hindi and the style is a legacy of the British Raj. Bungalows normally have no stairs - but a peculiar hybrid, with a bedroom in the loft, is known as a dormer bungalow.

C is for Cottage - originally the home of cotters, agricultural workers and their families, and surrounded by a patch of land for subsistence agriculture. Later, in industrial Britain, the word was adapted to describe the small homes of miners and textile mill workers. Many surviving cottages have been renovated and extended and tend to have large Sky dishes attached to the gable end.

D is for Duplex - an apartment spread over two floors connected by an indoor staircase. And now that so many Russians live here, you may start to encounter the word dacha - a house in the country occupied part of the year by its owner, usually an urban resident, or rented out as a summer retreat.

But, most crucially, D is for Developers - the new ascendancy and men who prove that education really is often wasted on the middle classes. They traditionally tended to leave school at 14, disappeared to London construction sites for a few years and returned with sharp suits, even sharper practices and metamorphosed into tycoons. These days more likely to visit Britain to buy a chunk of it.

E is for Estate Agents - also known as auctioneers (the auction being still the preferred method of sale for property vendors, though perhaps not for purchasers). Over the past 20 years, estate agents have overseen the transformation of Ireland's housing stock from a scarcely-regarded "commodity" into one of the world's most valuable assets. They are often alarmingly young, sharp-suited, irrepressibly confident and very rich. Just like many of their clients, in fact. Those under 30 have known only "the years of plenty" but older practitioners of the trade remember the "bad old days" and must know, in their hearts, that irrational exuberance results in an almighty hangover. Buying or selling a house is the most financially significant - and among the more stressful experiences - that most people undergo in a lifetime. A good estate agent is indispensable and will get to know you better than your mother does. A bad one can drive you to drink - and age you by 10 years with one phone call. E is also for eejit as in "aren't you the right eejit for not buying that house on Shrewsbury Road for £400,000 a few years ago".

F is for farmhouse - a structure in which many of the plain people of rural Ireland still live - if they haven't already decamped to a bungalow or into the oily embrace of a speculator. F is also for First-Time Buyers - the soft-bellied porpoises frolicking in the housing pool, unaware of the shark-infested waters lurking beneath.

Governments shed crocodile tears and express dismay that "young couples" are being priced out of the market.

G is for Gentrification - which happens when the beau-monde decides that a former blue-collar district is good-value/close-to-town/cute/authentic. Think Ringsend, Inchicore, South Circular Road. The signs are easy to spot - gay man buys artisan redbrick and puts in a Villeroy & Boch bathroom, the corner-shop starts to sell olives and the local newsagents starts to stock more copies of The Irish Times than the Irish Daily Star.

H is for houseboat - often moored on canals and a very affordable option. Pretty surroundings but miserable in winter.

I is for Interest Rates - these days fixed by Eurognomes in Frankfurt since the emasculation of Dame Street. Interest rates, which admittedly are at historically low levels, have in fact been creeping up in recent months. Every quarter or half a percentage rise is causing considerable pain to those on steep mortgages and further rate rises are predicted. Having to repay borrowed money should cause even the most feckless to acquire at least a rudimentary knowledge of finance. Yet as Eddie Hobbs has pointed out, astonishingly in a country of property investors, hardly anyone seems to know what the European Base Rate is. It's time to grapple with the hieroglyphics on the business pages.

J is for Joke as in "€900,000 for that pokey little yoke? You've got to be joking."

K is for Koi carp. A desire to have these colourful Japanese fish in the garden pond creeps up on people with middle age - like admiring Michael McDowell or finding pubs terribly noisy. And K is also for Kitchens - which due to the influence of "celebrity chefs" are increasingly so sophisticated and stylish that it would be a shame to dirty them by cooking a meal. Choose German for the vorsprung durch technik efficiency.

L is for Loft - not to be confused with the space under your roof, which is accessed via a Staire, and also known as the attic, where you store old golf clubs, unread back issues of VIP magazine, unwanted wedding gifts - especially bread, pasta and ice-cream makers - and your unfinished thesis. A loft is a type of residence created by converting the top floors of old industrial buildings which have very high ceilings, large windows, and concrete floors and ceilings. The genre first became fashionable when New York's meat-packing district, then old Victorian warehouses in London's Docklands, were developed for residential use. Now cheeky developers purpose-build "loft-style" apartments to recreate the look. L is also for Landlord - once the most hated figure in Irish society. But now everyone - from taxi-drivers to judges - appears to have tenants.

M is for Mansion - what we used to think millionaires lived in - but now most people who live in Dublin three-bed semis in a good area are worth a million - on paper at least. There's no strict definition of how big a house must be before it can be styled a mansion but in some countries floor space of around 744sq m (8,000sq ft) is thought to be the minimum. So it's basically a grand big house.

In London, very posh flats are often found in "mansion blocks" - apartment buildings with the exterior cleverly disguised to look like a mansion - and dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

M is also for Maisonette - the French word for a little house in English means a self-contained apartment (usually on two floors) in a larger house with its own entrance from the outside.

But to acquire one - or any other type of property - most people need a Mortgage which, depending on interest rates (see above), can become a millstone.

N is for Northern Ireland - our fourth green field - which is finally limbering up and joining in the southern property boom. Houses with good Belfast addresses are no longer in the bargain-basement.

O is for Overseas property - a current national obsession with Irish investors virtually colonising whole swathes of Eastern Europe and Spain - and even venturing to such outposts as Cape Verde, Shanghai, Barbados and Brazil.

P is for Pied-à-terre - a French term literally meaning "foot on the ground" and used to mean a small second home in the city used for temporary accommodation. A favourite with the international rich - who may keep one in several cities as they offer greater privacy than even the most opulent hotels. Also popular with rich businessmen conducting liaisons dangereuses. P is also for Penthouse - a special apartment on the top floor of a building. Highly prized for their sweeping views - they often have large wrap-around balconies. And P is for Parents - pity them! - who, having slaved a lifetime to pay off one mortgage, are increasingly faced with the prospect of having to "raise equity" - i.e. shell out wads of cash to enable their adult children to put down a deposit and start the life-cycle all over again.

Q is for Queues - a phenomenon of the early boom years when house-buyers would queue for days and nights for the chance to buy in newly launched developments. Less often seen in latter years but hasn't gone away.

R is for Restoration opportunities - which include cowsheds, barns, milking parlours, famine (i.e. ruined) cottages and blacksmiths' forges.

S is for Semi-Detached housing (usually shortened to semi, as in "three-bed semi") - the standard "unit" of suburbia - pairs of houses built side-by-side sharing a party wall - and where most Irish people actually live.

T is for Terraced housing - a continuous row of houses with open spaces at the front and back. Often now thought of as "working-class" (think redbrick Coronation Street) and so, terraced houses in middle class areas are now generally called townhouses. But, lest we forget, the really rich once lived mostly in terraced houses - think of elegant squares such as Fitzwilliam and Merrion.

U is for Units - a term which is increasingly used by developers and can refer to either apartments or shops in a mixed residential/commercial development.

V is for Villa - originally an (ancient) Roman country house for a member of the upper classes. The Victorians revived the word to describe virtually any detached suburban house in its own grounds.

But the term has long gone out of fashion except, of course, in southern Europe - where it is used (quite liberally) to describe a house, normally with a pool, available to rent in a holiday region. The smartest examples are to be found in Tuscany and the south of France.

W is for Wigwam -

see why, under Y.

X is for the X-factor - the indefinable quality that makes one house a "star" on a road of 40 identical houses. Interior decorators and auctioneers dream about it. X also stands for Xystus - a covered portico used by athletes for their exercises - which is either scraping the bottom of the barrel or the next must-have after hot-tubs and wine cellars.

Y is for Yurt, a portable dwelling structure (a type of tent) used by nomadic peoples in central Asia. Irish investors have not started to buy them. Yet. (Which is odd really, given property investors' traditional fondness for a certain tent in Galway). But Mongolian nomads, like igloo-dwelling Eskimos, had better watch out.

Z is for the Zuni, an American Indian tribe who traditionally lived in large communal houses in New Mexico - which sure saves a lot of bother; and, also for Zakat, a 2.5 per cent tax payable by Muslims on certain kinds of property and destined for charity. Now there's a thought.