rooming house

noun

1. a house with furnished rooms to rent; lodging house.

rooming house

noun

1. a house having self-contained furnished rooms or flats for renting

Word History and Origins

Origin of rooming house¹

An Americanism dating back to 1890–95

Example Sentences

She lived in the same run-down area of seedy rooming houses as Raffo, whom she had befriended on the streets.

From Seattle Times

Soon the rooming houses, small apartment buildings and ramshackle Victorian homes there gave way.

From Los Angeles Times

“Bunker Hill is old town, lost town, shabby town, crook town,” the noir master Raymond Chandler wrote, long before the neighborhood’s old rooming houses were demolished.

From New York Times

Georgia Kemp, a cook at the Elks Club, invited him to move into her rooming house at 20th Avenue and East Madison.

From Seattle Times

Johnson said he helped Arias-Lopez move several times, most recently a few years ago into a rooming house off Georgia Avenue where another man who attended the church also lived.

From Washington Post