What does bordello mean?
A bordello is a brothel: a building in which prostitutes work and clients are received. The word entered English by way of Italian, ultimately deriving from the same root as the French "bordel," and has been in use since at least the seventeenth century. In modern usage it is somewhat more literary and evocative than the neutral term "brothel," appearing most often in historical accounts of red-light districts, in fiction set in earlier eras, and in journalistic descriptions of places where prostitution is tolerated or legal, such as parts of Nevada and Amsterdam. Because prostitution itself carries strong social stigma, "bordello" inherits those connotations and is generally reserved for describing institutions rather than individuals. Common collocations include "run a bordello" and "bordello district." The plural is "bordellos." While the word is well understood across the English-speaking world, it is not part of everyday polite conversation and tends to appear in writing that deliberately invokes atmosphere or history.
nounA brothel; a building in which prostitutes are available.
- A brothel; a house of prostitution.
"The old sailors' quarter was notorious for its taverns and bordellos."
"In the 1890s, Storyville, New Orleans's famed red-light district, was lined with elegant bordellos."
"The novelist described the port town's dimly lit bordello with a mixture of fascination and disgust."
Standard regular English plural.
"The city's bordellos were shuttered after the reform movement gained momentum."
English borrowed the word for a brothel twice — once from French and once from Italian — and the Italian version, "bordello," is the one that stuck.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bordello
Bordello comes from Italian "bordello," meaning brothel, which itself derives from Old French "bordel" of the same meaning; the ultimate origin is medieval Latin "bordellum," a diminutive of "borda," meaning a hut or cabin. The word was adopted into English in the early seventeenth century. Its Germanic-root ancestor "borda" also gave English the word "board" via a related route.
How bordello is actually used
Somewhat literary or dated in tone compared to the plain term "brothel"; it often appears in historical writing about the nineteenth century. It carries strong negative connotations and is not used as an insult toward people.
Easily confused with bordello
"Bordel" is the French source word meaning brothel (and in modern French slang means "mess"), while "bordello" is the Italian-derived English noun adopted from it.