rooming house

American  

noun

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

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rooming house British  

noun

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

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Etymology

Origin of rooming house

An Americanism dating back to 1890–95

Example Sentences

This explosive, eye-opening work came from Ivy League professor Desmond moving to a trailer park and rooming house in a poverty-stricken part of Milwaukee.

From Los Angeles Times

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