molly house
molly house noun: a tavern or other establishment in 18th and 19th century England where homosexuals could meet for various activities, such as cross-dressing and sexual encounters.
Noun (1)
molly house (plural molly houses)
- A tavern or other establishment in 18th and 19th century England where homosexuals could meet for various activities, such as cross-dressing and sexual encounters.
- Just west of Charing Cross (where a molly named Tolson kept a brandy shop in the late 1720s, and where Whale and Horner were pilloried for keeping a molly house), we come to St James's Square and Pall Mall, ...1992, Rictor Norton, Mother Clap's molly house: the gay subculture in England, page 90
- In a vivid illustration of the dynamics created by sexual deviance, molly houses were a defense against the pressures of prejudice, but their visibility inspired new hostility.2007, Katherine Crawford, European Sexualities, 1400-1800, page 204
Noun (2) capitalized: Molly House
Molly House (plural Molly Houses)
- Alternative form of molly house.
- The London party ends with the guests departed and the disillusioned Will casting a dispirited eye over the dregs of the hollow revelry, and the final scene returns to the Molly House, where Mrs. Tull, her fortune made, gives up her new name and her new business to retire to the country to apparent...2001, Western European Stages - Volume 13, page 46
- 'Molly Houses' — places where homosexual men gather— may have been around as early as 1700: this is where the historian Rictor Norton in fact locates the origins of a gay subculture in England (Norton 1992).2007, Ken Gelder, Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice
Noun (3) capitalized: Molly house
Molly house (plural Molly houses)
- Alternative form of molly house.
- The common people, however, seem to have been more tolerant of the Molly houses in their midst.1987, Gary William Kinsman, The Regulation of Desire: sexuality in Canada, page 41
- A Molly house might adjoin a tavern or private house, often with guarded rooms, and provided an environment in which gay men could meet for drinking and entertainment, and engage in sexual acts, behind closed doors.2008, Catherine Ross, John Clark, London: The Illustrated History, page 154
Forms of molly house
| plural | molly houses |
|---|---|
| alternative form | molly-house |
| alternative form | Molly house |
| alternative form | Molly House |
| alternative form | mollie house |
| alternative form | mollie-house |
| alternative form | Mollie House |
| alternative form | Mollie house |
| plural | Molly Houses |
| plural | Molly houses |
Origin of molly house
From the Victorian slang molly (“a male homosexual”).
Questions about molly house
- What does molly house mean?
- Molly house means a tavern or other establishment in 18th and 19th century England where homosexuals could meet for various activities, such as cross-dressing and sexual encounters.
- What part of speech is molly house?
- Molly house is a noun.
- What is the plural of molly house?
- The plural of molly house is molly houses.
Words near molly house in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: molly house (page history and authors); Molly House (page history and authors); Molly house (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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Cite this entry: “molly house.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/molly_house. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.