dossing-ken
Obsolete British slang for a cheap lodging house or dosshouse, combining 'dossing' (sleeping or lodging cheaply) with 'ken' (thieves' cant for a house or dwelling).
Definitions
Obsolete British slang for a cheap lodging house or dosshouse, combining 'dossing' (sleeping or lodging cheaply) with 'ken' (thieves' cant for a house or dwelling). The term belongs to the vocabulary of 19th-century street life and vagabond culture. It is now entirely historical.
After three nights in a dossing-ken off the Seven Dials, he was desperate for a real bed.
Comments
(obsolete, slang) A dosshouse; a cheap inn.
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Semantically related
- padding-ken76%
An obsolete piece of British thieves and vagabond cant for a lodging house that catered to tramps and vagabonds — essentially a dosshouse. Padding referred to the act of walking the roads (padding the hoof), and ken was cant for a house. Documented in 18th and 19th century slang dictionaries.
- doss out73%
British slang meaning to sleep rough or bed down outside, typically used in the context of homelessness, camping out without gear, or crashing somewhere improvised in the open air. It extends the broader doss vocabulary — doss means to sleep or crash somewhere casual — with the out specifying an outdoor location. Often used without judgment, describing a practical situation rather than a moral one.
- doss73%
(intransitive, British, AU, slang) To sleep, especially in the open or in a makeshift bed, commonly in a derelict building because one is homeless.
- padding-ken71%
(obsolete, UK, slang) A lodging house for tramps.