Word.ws English Dictionary

joy division

joy division noun: a Nazi concentration camp brothel and its battalion of conscripted sex slaves.

Noun

joy division (plural joy divisions)

  1. (historical, World War II) A Nazi concentration camp brothel and its battalion of conscripted sex slaves.
    • Here they kept close watch over the girls' bodies to keep them whole, undamaged. Here, when a girl was flogged she was not permitted to return to the Joy Division. She was immediately tossed on the van and—Off to the crematorium!1955, Ka-tzetnik 135633 [pseudonym; Yehiel De-Nur], translated by Moshe M. Kohn, House of Dolls, New York: Simon & Schuster, →OCLC, page 174
    • As the girl, in the present moment, beseeches him to “look,” in a flashback Sol is forced by the commandant to look as various members of the “joy division,” and then specifically his wife, service SS guards.2013, Jacqui A. Miller, “The Pawnbroker”, in Carlos E. Cortés, editor, Multicultural America, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 1686

Forms of joy division

pluraljoy divisions

Origin of joy division

Calque of German Freudenabteilung. Popularized in the novella House of Dolls (1955), now considered largely fictional by many historians, although brothels did exist in some Nazi concentrations camps.

Words formed from joy division

Questions about joy division

What does joy division mean?
Joy division means a Nazi concentration camp brothel and its battalion of conscripted sex slaves.
What part of speech is joy division?
Joy division is a noun.
What is the plural of joy division?
The plural of joy division is joy divisions.

Words near joy division in the dictionary

  1. joy buzzer
  2. joy buzzers
  3. joy car
  4. Joy Con
  5. Joy Cons
  6. joy division
  7. joy divisions
  8. joy girl
  9. joy girls
  10. joy house
  11. joy houses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: joy division (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-joy division.wav.

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