rookeries

Noun

rookery (plural rookeries)

1. A colony of breeding birds or other animals.
   • It was a rookery which had never been raided by the hunters, and in consequence the seals were mild-tempered and at the same time unafraid.1904, Jack London, chapter 30, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC
2. (broadly) A crowded tenement.
   • Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through the dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
3. (UK, broadly, historical) A place where criminals congregate, often an area of a town or city.
   • The Flower and Dean St rookery had been home to many of those who lived at least partly by street crime.1980, Jerry White, Rothschild Buildings: life in an East End tenement block, 1887-1920, page 128

   Synonyms:

   slum

4. (obsolete, slang) That part of the barracks occupied by subalterns.