A boarding-house is not in common parlance, or in legal mean-ing, every private house where one or more boarders are kept occasionally only and upon special considerations. But it is a quasi pub-lie house, where boarders are generally and habitually kept, and which is held out and known as a place of entertainment of that kind. Cady v. McDowell, 1 Lans. (N. Y.) 486
Source: Black's Law Dictionary 2nd Ed (1910)