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
- brothellike adjective
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.
No-nonsense Maomao, a Tang Dynasty-era girl raised in a brothel who escapes servitude to parlay her apothecary skills in service of the palace, is one of the best female protagonists of all time.
From Salon • Dec. 19, 2025
“Poor Things” features Bella, a reanimated woman who has to invent her life, and her guideposts are a prostitute, a brothel madam and a former actress.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 19, 2023
Of course, his Spanish background was essential to his genius: “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” was named after a brothel in Barcelona, and “Guernica” was a response to a fascist atrocity in the Spanish Civil War.
From Washington Post • Mar. 22, 2023
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
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.
