Green’s Dictionary of Slang

convent n.

a brothel.

1671		‘Upon the Beadle’ in Lord Poems on Affairs of State (1968) I 175: The Cyprian convent they attempt by storm, Which held out [...] Though kept but by the abbess and one maid.
1691		R. Ames Female Fire-ships 14: What Man’s a Stranger to the fam’d Report, / Of the Religious Nuns of Sals’bury Court? / Who daily standing at their Convent Door, / And plying, seem to cry, next Whore, next Whore.
1759		‘Hot Stuff’ in Silber Songs of Independence (1973) 146: ‘If you please, Madam Abbess, a word with your nuns!’ / Each soldier shall enter the convent in buff, / And then, never fear, we will give them Hot Stuff!
1761		Memoirs of [...] Jane D****s 85: She soon became acquainted with Madame P—s, who kept a celebrated convent in the Rue de st Honoré.
1833		Ely’s Hawk and Buzzard (N.Y.) 21 Sept. 2/2: Juliet— I’ll love thee with more heat than youth could from me expect [...] Uncle— Oh Hush! Go away! Get out! I wont! Now Mr. Editor, let me ask you whether such language is fit to be used in a respectable convent.
1842		Flash (NY) 4 Sept. n.p.: He learned from one of the inmates of the convent that one of her fellow nuns had introduced a customer, and after taking his money, had made an effort to leave his company.
1850		Fast Man 14:1 n.p.: Cardinal Stagger is expected hourly from Rome, with power to cover in the bridges of Waterloo and Hungerford, which are to be converted into promenades for the Sisters of the Exeter-street and Off-alley institutions, and the convent in Shepherd-street, is to be re-modelled, and indulgences granted at a very low price.