flophouse

English

Bunks in a flophouse, circa 1890.

Alternative forms

  • flop-house

Etymology

From flop +‎ house, originally hobo slang, presumably from slang flop (“lie down to sleep”).[1]

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈflɒphaʊs/

Noun

flophouse (plural flophouses)

  1. (US, slang) A cheap hotel or boarding house where many people sleep in large rooms. [from 20th c.]
    • 1904, McClure’s Magazine, November 1904:[1]
      In one of [Cincinnati’s] slum districts stands the Silver Moon, a “flop house” (i.e., a house where the occupants are “flopped” out of their hanging bunks by letting down the ropes).
    • 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin 2006, p. 34:
      He was born out back of a twopenny flophouse in what the wags called “The Holy Land” […].

Synonyms

Hypernyms

  • lodging house
  • workingmen's hotel

Translations

References

  1. 1 2 “flophouse” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2018.
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