bawdy-house

noun

"bawdy-house" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“bawdy-house” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
11
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A brothel; a house of prostitution.

Corpus desk

Index EN-bawdy-house · bawdy-house · English

bawdy-house · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 11 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "B" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for bawdy-house
PropertyValue
Headwordbawdy-house
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters11
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “bawdy-house” in English

bawdy-houseranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

bawdy-house is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A brothel; a house of prostitution.".

No misspelling variants are generated for bawdy-house in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is bawdy-house, spelled B-A-W-D-Y---H-O-U-S-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    A brothel; a house of prostitution.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how bawdy-house appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. 1980, Stew Newton, "Think About I!!", pamphlet reproduced in 1981, Feb 14, Alexander Wilson, "The New Right Attacks Childhood Sexuality: A Canadian Perspective", in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 29, page 7. Yet Sewell can publicly embrace a homosexual like George Hislop who helps to run a bawdy house for men and is a candidate for alderman in Ward 6.
  2. The spread of venereal disease slaughtered innocent wives and families by the thousands; the plague of bawdy houses destroyed the peace and livelihood of honest citizens.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "bawdy-house"?
"bawdy-house" is spelled B-A-W-D-Y---H-O-U-S-E.
What does "bawdy-house" mean?
As a noun, "bawdy-house" means: A brothel; a house of prostitution.
What language does "bawdy-house" come from?
"bawdy-house" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list