chapel, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

chapel n.

1. a brothel.

1779

Nocturnal Revels I 13: Peg Woffington [...] often sacrificed at the altar of Venus in this chapel.

2. (N.Z. gay) nickname of a public lavatory off Karangahape Road, Auckland, used for soliciting.

2010

W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 63: [U]nder Howe Street, just off Auckland’s Karangahape Road existed another religiously titled toilet called the Chapel.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

chapel hat-pegs (n.)

erect female nipples; usu. in phr. stand/standing up like chapel hat-pegs.

1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 97: The screw’s eyes popped out like chapel hat-pegs.
1992		‘My Sexual Fantasy’ in Escort Feb. n.p.: Her nipples are standing up like chapel hat-pegs.
1997		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: chapel hat pegs simile used to describe large, erect nipples. As in: ‘Phoarr! She had nipples like chapel hat pegs.’ Also pygmies cocks.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 77: Knockers like chapel hat pegs.
2006		at asstr.org 🌐 I’m slim with small(ish), pert breasts that have small aureoles and giant nipples. When they’re hard Jon says they’re like chapel hat pegs.

chapel-warmer (n.)

(Aus.) a church goer.

1933

R. Tate Doughman 118: I have always found him an honest man, and you know he’s a chapel-warmer!

In phrases

chapel of ease (n.) [play on SE chapel of ease, a chapel built for the convenience of parishioners who live far from the parish church]

1. the vagina.

1600		Munday & Drayton Sir John Oldcastle II i: sir john: Sirrah, dost thou not know that a good-fellow parson may haue a chapel of ease, where his parish Church is farre off? har.: You whorson-stoned vicar!
c.1650		J. Cleveland ‘Square-Cap’ in Morris & Withington Poems of Cleveland (1967) 44: [He has] a long-wasted conscience towards a Sister, [...] making a Chappell of Ease of her lap.
1663		Head Hic et Ubique II ii: My Gardens and Walks therein shud be composed of nothing but pleasure, in whose shady Meanders Venus shud have a thousand Chappels of ease.
1691		J. Wilson Belphegor IV iii: Thou hadst the world before thee; every lap was thy chapel of ease.
1741		‘Capt. Samuel Cock’ Voyage to Lethe 37: At the lower end of the Temple was another Idol, called Masturpro, with this inscription over it, A Chapel of Ease. A naked Man erect, one Leg a little before the other, with his Right-Hand grasping his Privites.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 61: Chapelle, f. The female pudendum; ‘the chapel of ease’.

2. a privy, a lavatory.

1804		Sporting Mag. Jan. XXIII 187/2: I was soon taught to consider S.’s [i.e. a casino] [...] only as one of the devil’s chapel’s [sic] of ease.
1857		Paul Pry (London) 15 Aug. n.p.: J—hn R—od [...] to take more raw eggs before going into the orchestra of the chapel of ease, of a Sunday.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1909		Coshocton (OH) Daily Times 26 Aug. 3/3: I think Konstantin would like to have it [i.e. a wedding] in a chapel of ease in the Old Kent Road.
1913		in Webster.
2002		A. Mariello ‘Dirty Dictionaries’ on Weekly Dig 🌐 He suddenly got a serious case of the BDTs and made it to the chapel of ease with the speed of God, only to Hershey-squirt all over the porcelain temple. It ain’t easy being a grasshopper.

chapel of little ease (n.) [SE little-ease, ‘a place in which there is little ease for him who occupies it. A narrow place of confinement; spec. the name of a dungeon in the Tower of London, and of an ancient place of punishment for unruly apprentices at the Guildhall, London. Also, the pillory or stocks.’ (OED) + play on prev.]

a police station.

1871		Daily Tel. 27 Jan. [F&H].
[1889		Answers 9 Feb. [n.p.] A fourth kind of torture was a cell called little ease. It was of so small dimensions, and so constructed, that the prisoner could neither stand, walk, sit, nor lie in it at full length. He was compelled to draw himself up in a a squatting posture, and so remain during several days [F&H]].