What does boardinghouse mean?
A boardinghouse is a house in which several lodgers rent rooms on a relatively long-term basis, traditionally taking their meals with the landlord, landlady, or fellow residents at a common table. The word derives from "board" in its sense of daily meals provided for payment — the same root that gives us "room and board." Boardinghouses flourished in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in rapidly growing cities, offering respectable single people — young clerks, teachers, widows, and new arrivals — affordable housing without the isolation of living alone. They occupy a cultural middle ground between the hotel and the private home: less anonymous than an inn, but not quite family life either. In literature and film, the boardinghouse often stands for genteel poverty, transience, or the odd intimacy of strangers forced into daily contact. Though the institution has largely faded — displaced by apartments, hostels, and guesthouses — the word survives as a vivid marker of an earlier social world, and it retains a slightly old-fashioned, evocative tone in modern usage.
nounA house in which lodgers rent rooms and take their meals with the landlady or landlord, typically on a long-term basis.
- A house offering rented rooms, usually with meals included, to long-term lodgers.
"After losing his job, he moved into a shabby boardinghouse near the rail yards."
"She paid twelve dollars a week for a room and two meals at Mrs. Halloran's boardinghouse."
"The novel is set in a cramped San Francisco boardinghouse full of struggling artists."
Standard plural; note that some writers style it "boarding-house" (hyphenated), especially in older British texts.
"The street once held three boardinghouses catering to sailors between voyages."
In the 19th century, the boardinghouse was America's great social mixer — where young clerks, widows, and newcomers to the city all ate dinner at one shared table, whether they liked each other or not.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of boardinghouse
Boardinghouse combines "boarding," from "board," meaning food served at a table (from Old English "bord," a plank or table), with "house." The use of "board" for paid meals dates to the Middle Ages, when travelers literally sat at the landlord's board; the compound itself arose in the seventeenth century as commercial lodging for workers and travelers expanded. It thus shares its root with everyday words like "breadboard," "aboard," and "room and board."
Related word forms
How boardinghouse is actually used
The word carries a distinctly old-fashioned, literary flavor today; modern equivalents are more likely to be called rooming houses, guesthouses, or shared rentals. In British English the term has largely been replaced by "lodgings" or "guesthouse," though it remains well understood. It often connotes modest, slightly shabby accommodation of a bygone era.
Easily confused with boardinghouse
A boarding school is a private school where pupils live during term time, while a boardinghouse is lodging for paying adult guests, not an educational institution.
A hotel serves transient guests with individual service, whereas a boardinghouse offers longer-term residence, often with meals shared in a common room.