whore

Pronunciation: /hɔɚ/

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money
  2. verb work as a prostitute
  3. verb have unlawful sex with a whore

Etymology

From Middle English hore, from Old English hōre, from Proto-Germanic *hōrǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *kéh₂ros (“loved”), from *keh₂- (“to wish; desire”). Cognate with Dutch hoer, German Hure, Old Norse hóra as well as Sanskrit चारु (cā́ru, “dear”), Latin cārus (“dear, expensive”), and Irish cara (“friend”). The unetymological spelling with wh- superficially denotes a formerly standard pronunciation with an excrescent /w/ (such as in whole), but such a form is hardly found in either commentators on Early Modern English pronunciations or records of traditional dialects (which both explicitly mention its rarity or absence), therefore leaving the spelling somewhat inexplicable. However, this may be because such an excrescent /w/ was absorbed by a following /uː/ (as in words with etymological /w/ such as whom, two) after it became established in the spelling but before our earliest orthoepic records.

In classic literature

Synonyms

prostitute, cocotte, harlot, bawd, tart, cyprian, fancy woman, working girl, sporting lady, lady of pleasure, woman of the street

Semantic network

Broader (hypernyms)
woman
Narrower (hyponyms)
call girl, demimondaine, camp follower, comfort woman, streetwalker, white slave

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