A cheap lodging house offering temporary shelter, often used by homeless or vagrant people; a flophouse.
Compound of 'doss' + 'house.' This term emerged in 19th-century Britain to describe the low-cost boarding houses where rough sleepers could rent a bed for the night cheaply.
Dosshouses were dark chapters of urban history—they were often filthy, overcrowded, and dangerous, yet they provided a crucial (if grim) safety net for those with nowhere else to go in industrial cities.
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