English

Bunks in a flophouse, circa 1890.

Alternative forms

• flop-house

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

• doss-house

Translations

Related terms

• lodging house
• workingmen's hotel

References

1. 1 2 “flophouse” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001).