Summary
Dictionary.com defines it as:
- a secret or unauthorized meeting, esp. for religious worship, as those held by Protestant dissenters in England in the 16th and 17th centuries.
- a place of meeting or assembly, esp. a Nonconformist meeting house.
- Obsolete. a meeting or assembly.
Michael Robinson Link to this
English Dissenters religious and social, by sect, prior to, during and after the Civil War:-
http://exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/index.html