Bordel

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A brothel. archaic

    "Appropriately enough she had given him a rendezvous (for the marriage) at the old Sphinx, opposite the Gare Montparnasse, where the respectable exterior – a family café, where families up from the country came to eat an ice and wat for their train – masked a charming bordel with a high gallery and several spotless cubicles."

Example

More examples

"Appropriately enough she had given him a rendezvous (for the marriage) at the old Sphinx, opposite the Gare Montparnasse, where the respectable exterior – a family café, where families up from the country came to eat an ice and wat for their train – masked a charming bordel with a high gallery and several spotless cubicles."

Etymology

From Middle English bordel, from Old French bordel (“brothel”). Doublet of bordello.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.