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prostitute

noun · adjective · verb

Simple meaning

Someone who does, or offers to do, a demeaning or dishonourable activity for money or personal gain.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

prahstuhtoot

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpɹɑstətut

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A person who does, or offers to do, a demeaning or dishonourable activity for money or personal gain; someone who acts in a dishonourable way for personal advantage.

adjective

  1. Taking part in promiscuous sexual activity, licentious; (later, chiefly as attributive use of noun) that is a prostitute.

verb

  1. transitivereflexive

    To offer (oneself or someone else) for sexual activity in exchange for money.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A person who does, or offers to do, a demeaning or dishonourable activity for money or personal gain; someone who acts in a dishonourable way for personal advantage.

Used this way, prostitute is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

noun

Sense: person who does or or offers to do

whore

adjective

Sense: taking part in promiscuous sexual activity or licentious

cyprianArchaic

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.