bawdy-house bottle
An obsolete British slang expression for a very small bottle or a notably short measure of alcohol.
Definitions
An obsolete British slang expression for a very small bottle or a notably short measure of alcohol. The implication is that brothels (bawdy houses) were notorious for serving inadequate, watered-down, or short measures — making 'bawdy-house bottle' a shorthand for a meagre pour. Encountered in historical dictionaries of cant and slang, such as Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Has no currency in modern English whatsoever.
He complained the landlord had served him no better than a bawdy-house bottle — barely enough to wet a man's whistle.
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(obsolete, slang) A very small bottle.
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Semantically related
- can house63%
Chicago-born slang for a brothel or bordello. 'Can house' was part of the city's early 20th-century underworld vocabulary, where shady establishments needed discreet labels. The term sits in the same murky drawer as 'house of ill repute' and 'disorderly house' — euphemisms that let people refer to the business without spelling it out. Rarely heard today outside of historical crime writing or Chicago blues lyrics, but it captures the blunt poetic genius of old-school American street talk.
- bottlo63%
(Australia, NZ, informal) A shop that sells alcoholic beverages.
- can house62%
(US, mainly Chicago, slang) A brothel, bordello.
- bottled62%
(slang) drunk.