Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A house of prostitution.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A house of lewdness; a house appropriated to the purposes of prostitution; a bawdy-house; a stew.
  • noun A wretch; a depraved person; a lewd man or woman.
  • To haunt brothels.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A house of lewdness or ill fame; a house frequented by prostitutes; a bawdyhouse.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A house of prostitution.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a building where prostitutes are available

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for brothel-house, from Middle English brothel, prostitute, from brothen, past participle of brethen, to go to ruin, from Old English brēothan, to decay.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

An abbreviation of ‘brothel-house’, ultimately from Old English brēoþan ‘degrade, deteriorate’.

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