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boarding house

boarding house

18 2.7
A house where people pay to stay and get meals
  • noun
  • /ˈbɔrdɪŋ haʊs/
  • Archaic
translation icon : pensión
  • So Rufe and I got rooms in a boarding house and agreed to meet that afternoon at the circus.
  • live in a boarding house
  • women in a boarding house
  • German boarding house

So the school and we were all in boarding houses.

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Examples

  • Someone at the boarding house must have turned them in.

  • Along with some other nostalgics from the provinces, we both lived in a boarding house near the university.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • You know, we were lucky to find a boarding house.

  • I was living in a boarding house then.

  • Not a hotel, more like a boarding house.

  • Now that the boarding house is an actual house, there is more work for everyone.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • In the beginning, they were happy, and they met at her boarding house whenever they had time.

    Academic text (2006)
  • I left them in my coat pocket in the boarding house where I'm staying.

  • So he moved down to Elkton, in Maryland, and took a room in a boarding house.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • She found a cozy boarding house where meals were included in the rent.

Synonyms

hostel
vsboarding house
34 2.1

A cheap place for travelers or students to sleep, often with shared rooms and facilities

focuses on paid stays that include meals in a private home
guesthouse
vsboarding house
21 2.5

A small building near a house where visitors stay

serves paying residents with meals in a private home setting
rooming house
vsboarding house
  • US
7 3.7

A house where people rent single rooms and share bathrooms or a kitchen

provides meals rather than relying on shared self catering
boardinghouse
vsboarding house
4 4.8

A house where people pay to live and get meals

is the same meaning but written as two words
lodging house
vsboarding house
  • UK
1 3.6

A house that rents rooms to people for short or long stays

includes meal service as part of the paid stay
lodgings
vsboarding house
3.3

Temporary rooms you rent to stay in for a short time

adds regular meal provision to the temporary rented stay
accommodation house
vsboarding house
3.8

A building that offers rooms for people to stay for a short time

is a private home that includes meals for paying residents

How Comfortable

hotel room
276 1.0
boarding house
  • Archaic
18 2.7
diggings
  • Archaic
8.4
camp
1.0

Surface Forms

Morphology

board + house

The meaning is compositional: 'board' (to provide or receive lodging/meals) combined with 'house' (a building) directly yields a house where boarding is offered. This compound follows common English noun-formation patterns and similar constructions exist cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Boarding house comes from the old use of board to mean 'meals' or the table where people ate. So a boarding house was a house where people paid to stay and were given meals, which is why it means a place that provides rooms and food today.