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Webster 1913 Edition


Rookery

Rook′er-y

,
Noun.
;
pl.
Rookeries
.
1.
The breeding place of a colony of rooks; also, the birds themselves.
Tennyson.
2.
A breeding place of other gregarious birds, as of herons, penguins, etc.
3.
The breeding ground of seals, esp. of the fur seals.
4.
A dilapidated building with many rooms and occupants; a cluster of dilapidated or mean buildings.
5.
A brothel.
[Low]

Webster 1828 Edition


Rookery

ROOK'ERY

, n.
1.
A nursery of rooks.
2.
In low language, a brothel.

Definition 2024


rookery

rookery

English

Noun

rookery (plural rookeries)

  1. A colony of breeding birds or other animals.
  2. A crowded tenement.
  3. (Britain) a place where criminals congregate, often an area of a town or city.
    • 1980, Jerry White, Rothschild Buildings: life in an East End tenement block, 1887-1920‎, page 128:
      The Flower and Dean St rookery had been home to many of those who lived at least partly by street crime.
    • 1995, Cyrille Fijnaut, Changes in Society, Crime and Criminal Justice in Europe:
      These rookeries sustained criminal social systems that provided schooling in crime for the young and newcomers.
    • 1998, Stephen Inwood; Roy Porter, A History of London‎, page 522:
      In the Victorian imagination, crime and the criminal class were always associated with rookeries, the dense slum areas in which criminals were said to live.

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