A house where lodging and meals are provided to paying residents, typically on a long-term basis.
Compound of 'boarding' (providing room and meals) and 'house.' Became prominent in English around the 18th-19th centuries as a common lodging option for transient workers and travelers.
Boardinghouses were the internet of information in the 1800s—residents shared gossip, news, and political ideas across social classes, making them surprisingly important sites of social mixing and democratic discourse in industrial cities!
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