Seraglio

• The sequestered living quarters used by wives and concubines in a Turkish Muslim household, from an Italian variant of Turkish seray, meaning 'palace, enclosed courts'. Topkapi Seray is the main Ottoman palace in Istanbul, now a museum (robbed by Maximilian Schell in Jules Dassin's movie Topkapi). A 'caravanserai' is an inn or rest stop for caravans. The word has a Persian origin.
• A harem, and therefore in the heated European imagination a place of dalliance and debauchery with odalisques.

The term can also refer to traditional palaces and grand houses built around courtyards in the Turkish city of Istambul.

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