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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

accommodation house en · NOUN

Meanings

  1. (historical) A building offering board and lodging to travellers.
  2. (euphemistic, historical) A building offering rooms to prostitutes and their clients for a short period in exchange for payment.
    • Subsequently, being recalled, he testified that "the phrase 'is keeping an accommodation-house,' when applied to a woman, in Jasper county, in his opinion, mean the same as a house of ill-fame, or house of prostitution." On cross-examination, he said, "the phrase 'is keeping an accommodation-house,' when applied to a woman, means the same in Jasper county as it would in Newton county, or anywhere else. […]" 1883, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature of the State of Indiana, Indiana: Supreme Court, page 276:
    • […] it provides what is now accepted as a clearly authentic and valuable record of the Victorian sexual underworld and the people who frequented it. His descriptions are often vivid, such as his account of a visit to an accommodation house one summer morning […] 1972, Michael Pearson, The Age of Consent: Victorian Prostitution and Its Enemies, page 27:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
accommodation houses Number=Plur lexicographic