brothel
Americannoun
noun
-
a house or other place where men pay to have sexual intercourse with prostitutes
-
informal any untidy or messy place
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of brothel
First recorded in 1350–1400, for an earlier sense; short for brothel-house “whorehouse”; Middle English brothel “harlot,” originally, “worthless person,” from broth- (past participle stem of brethen, Old English brēothan “to decay, degenerate”) + -el, noun suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He played queens, courtesans, goddesses and brothel madams with a studied grace.
From BBC ● Apr. 4, 2026
He’s penned several children’s books and a novella called “The Legend of Diddley Squatt,” loosely inspired by the life of the late comedian Richard Pryor, who grew up in a brothel.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2023
How did you approach the different Louises: the brothel owner, the legit businessman, the centenarian?
From Washington Post ● Nov. 14, 2022
In the show, Louis is a Creole brothel owner who travels in white circles, lamenting in the pilot that he can’t be an “openly gay Negro man.”
From New York Times ● Sep. 30, 2022
The sept tempted him no more than the brothel; his own gods kept their temples in the wild places, where the weirwoods spread their bone-white branches.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
A South Korean court has ordered Japan to compensate a group of women who were forced to work in military brothels during World War Two.
From BBC ● Nov. 23, 2023
Shared security challenges helped U.S. allies Japan and South Korea mend relations that had soured over disputes about compensation for women forced to work in Japanese military brothels and other Koreans drafted as wartime labourers.
From Reuters ● Jul. 28, 2023
The Tabor Opera House quickly grabbed the attention of a bustling, rowdy city full of competing theaters, saloons and brothels.
From New York Times ● Aug. 11, 2021
He rejected accounts of forced labor as "pure fiction," saying the Japanese army "did not dragoon Korean women to work in its brothels."
From Fox News ● Mar. 8, 2021
Keeley cures, jails, penitentiaries, poorhouses, brothels, cabarets, and insane asylums.
From Treading the Narrow Way by Barrett, R. E.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
