or dossing-crib or -ken, subs. (vagrants’).—A common lodging-house. [From DOSS, to sleep + CRIB, or KEN, a place of abode.] Fr., un bastengue and un garno. English variants: LIBKEN, TWO-PENNY-ROPE, PADDING-KEN, and KIDDEN (all of which see). DOSS-MONEY = the price of a night’s lodging.
1838. The Comic Almanack, April. The hulks is now my bowsing-crib, the hold my DOSSING-KEN.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. I., p. 150. When their funds are insufficient to defray the charge of a bed, or a part of one, at a country DOSSING-CRIB (his lodging-house).
1885. Daily Telegraph, 22 August, p. 2, col. 1. Her’s is no common DOSSING-CRIB, with a squalid kitchen, common to all comers.
1889. Globe, 29 Aug., p. 2, col. 2. Various other smart people who are at present residing in the DOSS-HOUSES of London.
1890. Speaker, 22 Feb., p. 211, col. 1. Equally bad DOSS-HOUSES exist in Notting Hill and near Drury Lane.
