Flophouse
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ˈflɒphaʊs/
Alternative forms
Origin
From flop + house, originally hobo slang, presumably from slang flop ("lie down to sleep").
Online Etymology Dictionary
Full definition of flophouse
Noun
flophouse
(plural flophouses)- (US, slang) A cheap hotel or boarding house where many people sleep in large rooms. from 20th c.
- 1904, McClure's, November 1904: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†….