harlot
pronunciation
How to pronounce harlot in British English:
UK [ˈhɑ:lət]
How to pronounce harlot in American English:
US [ˈhɑrlət]
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- Noun:
- a woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money
Word Origin
- harlot
- harlot: [13] The use of harlot for ‘prostitute’ is a comparatively recent development in the word’s history. It originally meant ‘tramp, beggar’, and did not come to mean ‘prostitute’ until the 15th century. It was borrowed from Old French harlot or herlot ‘vagabond’, a word of unknown ancestry with relatives in Italian (arlotto) and Provençal (arlot).
- harlot (n.)
- c. 1200 (late 12c. in surnames), "vagabond, man of no fixed occupation, idle rogue," from Old French herlot, arlot "vagabond, tramp, vagrant; rascal, scoundrel," with cognates in Old Provençal (arlot), Old Spanish (arlote), and Italian (arlotto), but of unknown origin. Usually male in Middle English and Old French. Used in positive as well as pejorative senses by Chaucer; applied in Middle English to jesters, buffoons, jugglers, later to actors. Secondary sense of "prostitute, unchaste woman" probably had developed by 14c., certainly by early 15c., but this was reinforced by its use euphemistically for "strumpet, whore" in 16c. English translations of the Bible. The word may be Germanic, with an original sense of "camp follower," if the first element is hari "army," as some suspect.
Example
- 1. But you can help behaving like a harlot .
- 2. Prostitution at least offered financial independence : a typical harlot could earn in a month what a tradesman or clerk would earn in a year .
- 3. Then from the hole on my right comes , " I hate that you called me a harlot on television . "
- 4. And they said , should he treat our sister like a harlot ?
- 5. How is the faithful city become an harlot !