[go: up one dir, main page]
Advertisement

Origin and history of brothel

brothel(n.)

"bawdy house," 1590s, shortened from brothel-house, from brothel "prostitute" (late 15c.), earlier "vile, worthless person" of either sex (14c.), from Old English broðen past participle of breoðan "deteriorate, go to ruin," from Proto-Germanic *breuthan "to be broken up," related to *breutan "to break" (see brittle). In 16c. brothel-house was confused with unrelated bordel (see bordello) and the word shifted meaning from a person to a place.

also from 1590s

Entries linking to brothel

bordello(n.)

c. 1300, bordel "house of prostitution," from Old French bordel "small hut, cabin; brothel" (12c.), diminutive of borde "hut made of planks," from Frankish *bord "wooden board" or some other Germanic source related to board (n.1). The modern form (1590s) is a result of the French word being borrowed by Italian then passed back to French with a suffix and re-borrowed into English.

brittle(adj.)

"breaking easily and suddenly," late 14c., britel, perhaps from an unrecorded Old English adjective *brytel, related to brytan "to crush, pound, to break to pieces," from Proto-Germanic stem *brutila- "brittle," from *breutan "to break up" (source also of Old Norse brjota "to break," Old High German brodi "fragile"), from PIE *bhreu- "to cut, break up" (see bruise (v.)). With -le, suffix forming adjectives with meaning "liable to." Related: Brittleness.

    Advertisement

    More to explore

    stew
    The obsolete slang meaning "brothel" (mid-14c., usually, stews) is from a sense of "public bath house" (mid-14c.), from Old...
    assignation
    by arrangement, tryst" is from 1650s, especially for a love-affair; assignation-house (1849) was an old euphemism for "brothel...
    nanny
    Nanny-house "brothel" is slang from c. 1700....
    barrelhouse
    "cheap saloon, often with an associated brothel," by 1875, American English, so called in reference to the barrels of beer...
    knock up
    New Jersey context), possibly ultimately from knock in a sense "to copulate with" (1590s; compare slang knocking-shop "brothel...
    stable
    also applied to cowsheds and pigsties, and directly from Latin stabulum "a stall, fold, aviary, beehive, lowly cottage, brothel...
    accost
    another situation, the officiating clergyman while in the pulpit, is in a position to witness the proceedings in a contiguous brothel...
    building
    c. 1300, "a structure;" late 14c., "act or process of constructing;" verbal noun from build (v.). Building-block is attested from 1846 as "one of a set of children's play blocks;" 1849 as "temporary support on which a ship's keel rests while the ship is being constructed;" 1856 a
    edifice
    late 14c., from Old French edifice "building" (12c.), from Latin aedificium "building," from aedificare "to erect a building," from aedis, variant of aedes "temple, sanctuary," usually a single edifice without partitions, also, in the plural, "dwelling house, building," originall
    house
    Old English hus "dwelling, shelter, building designed to be used as a residence," from Proto-Germanic *hūsan (source also of Old Norse, Old Frisian hus, Dutch huis, German Haus), of unknown origin, perhaps connected to the root of hide (v.) [OED]. In Gothic only in gudhus "temple

    Share brothel

    Advertisement
    Trending
    Dictionary entries near brothel
    Advertisement