hussy

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   old-fashioned, offensive: an insulting term for a woman or girl judged sexually immoral

   The insult hussy reflects a dated and offensive judgment about a woman's sexuality.

2. 2
   noun

   dated, disapproving: an impudent, mischievous, or badly behaved girl or woman

   The cook angrily called the servant a hussy and threatened to chase her from the kitchen.

3. 3
   noun

   obsolete: a housewife or housekeeper

   In older English, hussy could neutrally refer to the hussy who managed a household.

Simplified etymology

Hussy developed in late Middle English from housewife, which was its original meaning. About a hundred years later it became both a rude or playful form of address for a woman and a derogatory term implying a lack of morals.

A worn-down form of Middle English houswyf, 'housewife.' The neutral household sense shifted to 'woman or girl' and then, by the seventeenth century, to disparaging judgments about behavior or sexuality. A traditional voiced pronunciation, /ˈhʌzi/, also survives.

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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