nunnery

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a convent for nuns, or the buildings occupied by such a religious community

   She planned to spend the winter in a quiet nunnery near the border.

2. 2
   noun

   archaic, especially in Shakespearean usage: a brothel

   Editors still debate the bitter double meaning of nunnery in Hamlet's command.

From Middle English nonnerie or nonnery, formed from nun + -ery, the suffix used for a place, occupation, or collective body. Its ordinary sense is a community or house of nuns. The old brothel sense, now chiefly encountered in discussions of Shakespeare, may exploit euphemism or deliberate wordplay.

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