the.com/brothel

means A house where sex is sold, typically staffed by workers under a manager or madam rather than independent operators.

from Traces to Old English 'breothan,' meaning to go to ruin or decay — a brothel was literally a 'wreck' or ruined thing before the sense narrowed to a broken-down person, specifically a disreputable woman, and finally to the house where she worked. By the medieval period 'bordel' (from a separate French/Germanic root meaning little hut or cabin) was the more common English word for such houses, and the two terms seem to have blended — 'brothel-house' eventually simplified to just 'brothel,' absorbing the meaning of 'bordel' along the way. The exact merger is a bit tangled, but the ruin-sense origin is well established.