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.
实用例句
1. Why should I approve of his cavorting with a harlot?
另外我为什么要赞成国王娶一个**为妻?
来自电影对白
2. But they said,'should he treat our sister as a harlot? "
创34:31他们说 、 他岂可待我们的妹子如同**麽.
来自互联网
3. The cold smile of a deceased harlot.
一个死**冰冷的微笑.
来自互联网
4. Destructive and greedy as a harlot.
它像**一样有害而贪婪.
来自互联网
5. When Judah saw her , he thought she was a harlot, for she had covered her face.
