can house
Chicago-born slang for a brothel or bordello.
Definitions
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.
The detective's case file was full of addresses — saloons, gambling dens, and at least one can house on the south side.
Comments
(US, mainly Chicago, slang) A brothel, bordello.
“The new navigation center can house 80 people, and their pets, for short-term stays to get them off the street.”
— Bluesky· May 2026
Comments
Have a better definition?
Add your own interpretation of "can house".
⚡About Tech, Dev & AI slang
The vocabulary of software engineers, AI researchers, and anyone living in a terminal or on GitHub — from LLM to MCP, CORS to vibe coding, agentic to enshittification.
See all Tech, Dev & AI slang on Slangora.
Tags
Other words near "can house" (C)
Browse all slang words starting with C.
Related terms
People also read
Semantically related
- canhouse91%
US slang, mainly associated with Chicago, for a brothel. The can in this sense derives from can as slang for toilet or facilities, extending to an establishment associated with illicit activity. The term is now archaic in general use.
- canhouse89%
(slang, US, mainly, Chicago) A brothel.
- joy house69%
A dated American slang term for a brothel — dressing up the nature of the establishment with a cheerfully evasive name. Like many euphemisms for sex work venues, 'joy house' leans into ironic understatement, using the word 'joy' to sidestep the blunter vocabulary. Common in mid-20th century crime fiction and noir dialogue, it belongs to a tradition of colorful underworld vocabulary that used innocent-sounding words to discuss illicit businesses.
- iron house67%
Slang for prison — the house that's built of iron bars instead of drywall. It's part of a long tradition of euphemistic and metaphorical names for incarceration, like 'the big house,' 'the joint,' or 'the can.' Iron house has a bleaker, more poetic ring to it — the permanence and hardness of iron standing in for everything oppressive about incarceration. You'll find it in older slang dictionaries and still occasionally in rap lyrics and street vernacular.