Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a lodging house, night shelter or similar refuge for homeless people; in weaker sense, anywhere one can rest (see cite 1918); also attrib.

1869		Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Prison Assoc of N.Y. 232: [ref. to UK] A society of lads carefully trained in vice, in a doss-house, or any other den in our large towns.
1886		H. Goldsmid Dottings of a Dosser 8: These are the unfortunate creatures whose only home is the ‘doss-’ouse’.
1889		Bowyer & Baker [perf. Jennie Hill] Thereby Hangs a Tale 🎵 Poets weave romances of a glowing kind / In a London ‘Dosshouse’ none of it you’ll find.
1904		Truth (Brisbane) 10 Apr. 5/1: Just the sort of pottage [i.e. prison ‘skilly’] a doss-house derelict runs up against.
1896		M. Williams Round London 38: I was completely ignorant of the sort of life that was led in ‘kips’ or ‘doss-houses’.
1906		Marvel 17 Nov. 467: The following evening saw Kippers in his old corner of the doss-house kichen.
1908		C. Hamilton Diana of Dobson’s in Morgan Years Between (1994) 51: What’s the hobject of sleeping in a twopenny doss when you’ve got a comfortable ’ome of your own?
1908		N.Z. Truth 22 Feb. 6/2: Coming out of the Salvarmy doss house is no excuse for getting drunk.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 80: We turned to seek refuge in the doss houses which abounded in the abyss.
1918		L.N. Smith Lingo of No Man’s Land 29: DOSS-HOUSE Some place, any place, where Tommy can snatch a little rest.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 573: There was a dosshouse in Marlborough Street, Mrs Maloney’s, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables.
1922		W. McG. Eager Contemp. Rev. n.p.: So ’e picked ’im aht of ve gu’er, fahnd ’is ’at and pu’ it on ’is napper, an’ took ’im to ve doss ’ahse, where ’e kipped ’imself.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 53: The stiffs did not talk about them [i.e. public baths] on the stem, in the doss-houses, in the saloons.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 11: We found a flophouse (dosshouse), a four-bit to a four-dollar hotel.
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 39: To take a deep breath in Bagrag’s Cellar [...] is like inhaling the combined vapours of a distillery, a dosshouse and a burning tobacco factory.
1939		Wodehouse Uncle Fred in the Springtime 123: [used joc. of mansion] ‘[S]ome place down in Hampshire, not far from my own little dosshouse’.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 13: My shelters have been [...] doss houses and park benches when even a small coin would have looked ‘big’.
1944		J. Cary Horse’s Mouth (1948) 151: I did see him coming out of that sixpenny doss back of Ellam Street.
1959		F. Norman Fings I i: Used to be big boss, / Now running a big doss house.
1966		G. Fletcher Down Among the Meths Men 20: Cable Street, where the meths men have a doss house.
1978		Observer Mag. 14 May 53: We drove by the Shelton Arms, a dosshouse raided for guns and drugs more times than any other place in America.
1981		J. Sullivan ‘Big Brother’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] The Shangri La doss house Stoke Newington!
1998		I. Welsh Filth 37: He’s a fuckin jakey! He lives in the doss-hoose.
2000		Indep. Rev. 5 Feb. 3: Bloody palace smells like a Benghazi doss house.
2009		T. Black Gutted 185: The place looked like a dosshouse. three or four sets of dirty trainers lying in the hallway.
2020		G. Armstrong Young Team 64: A don’t know where the doss houses [...] they’re likely tae pour oot ir.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 381: [T]he rest of the latty had become a de-luxe dosshouse.