strumpet

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   old-fashioned and disparaging: a woman who sells sex

   The hostile pamphlet dismissed the woman as a strumpet rather than describing her circumstances.

2. 2
   noun

   old-fashioned and disparaging: a woman judged to be sexually promiscuous or adulterous

   In the play, jealous characters repeatedly call an innocent woman a strumpet.

From Middle English strumpet. Its earlier origin is uncertain: proposed connections include Middle Dutch strompe or strompen and Late Latin stuprum, 'dishonor or illicit intercourse,' but no derivation is secure. The word is now chiefly historical, literary, or deliberately insulting.

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