Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) a brothel where each prostitute is a dress-lodger

1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 255: Corinthian Kate became the inmate of a dress-house! [...] kept during the day in beggary, and almost in rags, and at night dressed up like a painted doll, sent to the Theatre on speculation, watched by her landlady or old procuress hired for the purpose, to preclude her from robbing her mistress of her wages of prostitution, and also prevent her running off with the clothes belonging to her iniquitous employer.
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 27 Oct. 75/1: Mother Levy [...] keeps a ‘dress-house’ — that is, she sends out decoy girls, showily bedizened, who inveigle young creatures to their own wretched abode.
1844		New Sprees of London 28: The girl who is unfortunate enough to be an inmate of a dress house, is compelled to pay for a lodging, but, in fact, has no sleeping-room allotted to her use.

a prostitute who is dressed in finery by her landlady and repays the favour by walking the streets and turning over her profits.

1802		Annual Register Oct. 453/2: It appeared that this man kept what are called dress lodgers, and that he had procured these poor girls to officiate in that capacity; they were in the nightly habit of earning money by prostitution [etc.].
1829		Morn. Chron. (London) 6 Aug. 4/4: Clara, who is a very pretty girl, stated that ashe had formerly been a ‘dress lodger’ in the house of Mrs Belasco.
1837		W. Kidd London and all its Dangers 32: Dress-ladies. Another class of Cyprians who deserve no pity. They are, voluntarily, the property of an old hag, who clothes them elegantly, for the wages of their prostitution; and their only aim is to enjoy themselves, and cheat her of half her perquisites.
1841		Morn. Post (London) 29 Dec. 7/5: A handsome young girl was charged [...] with annoying gentlemen in the streets. the constable [...] said he did not believe the girl was in fault so much as a woman, whose ‘dress lodger’ she was, and who [...] urged her to attack well-dressed persons.
1844		New Sprees of London 8: Don't go with a dress woman at all, knowingly, but if you will go, do not go with her to her own house, at least the one she wishes you to go to.
1844		New Sprees of London 27: As the meaning of the term ‘dress girls’ may be unknown to some of my readers, I will venture an explanation for their special edification. They are women who are dressed and fitted out for the purpose of prostitution by certain old bawds [...] The clothes which they wear, though gaudy, are on a near inspection of the most flimsy and cheapest materials, are supplied to them on the most exorbitant terms [...] and towards payment of this debt, the poor girls are required to give up the whole, without reservation, of whatever complements they receive from gentlemen.
1850		Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: Mother Willit, of Gerrard Street, who could turn out forty dress mots; and, to crack her own wids, ‘So help her kidnies, she al’us turned her gals out with a clean a—e and a good tog’.
1852		Bell’s Life in Sydney 13 Mar. 3/1: The [...] notorious brothel keeper preferred a charge of robbery against [...] a rival landlady for stealing some ‘dress lodging decorations’.
1861		H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 26: Those who are subject to the mistress of a brothel [...] ii. ‘Dress Lodgers,’ or those who give either a portion or the whole of what they get to the mistress of the brothel in return for their board, lodging, and clothes.
1869		Era (London) 1 Aug. 6/1: This vile traffic, the ‘dress-lodger’ system, by which the poor girls are supplied with tawdry finery.
1876		J. Greenwood Low-Life Deeps 62: She’s a dress-woman, that’s what she is.

(W.I.) an overdressed or fashionably dressed person, a provocatively dressed woman; also as phr. dressed up to puss-foot.

1943, 1956

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

(US Und.) a lobbyist.

1909		‘The Lang. of Crooks’ in Wash. Post 20 June 4/2: [paraphrasing J. Sullivan] A dress-suit burglar is a lobbyist or a slippery criminal.
1910		J. Sullivan ‘Criminal Sl.’ in Amer. Law Rev. LII (1918) 890: The lobbyist [...] is known to the criminal world as a ‘dress suit burglar.’.

see under blow v.¹