harlotize
English
Alternative forms
- harlotise (non-Oxford British spelling)
Etymology
Verb
harlotize (third-person singular simple present harlotizes, present participle harlotizing, simple past and past participle harlotized)
- (intransitive) To act like a harlot.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:harlotize
- 1746, Benjamin Franklin, “Letter II”, in Reflections on Courtship and Marriage[1], section 4, London: A. Thompson, et al, page 39:
- It is no extraordinary paradox, That a man may himſelf debauch his own wife, and a woman harlotize with her own huſband.—But this ſubject muſt be touched with great nicety; therefore I ſhall only add, that even our moſt unobſerved behaviour ſhall carry with it ſuch a ſpirit of refinement, as to prevent that vulgar and libidinous degeneracy, which will infallibly blunt the edge of our joys, and in the end pall our reliſh.
- (transitive) To turn into a harlot; to prostitute.
- Synonyms: sell one's body, whore out; see also Thesaurus:pimp out, Thesaurus:prostitute oneself
- 1597, William Warner, Albion's England[2], book 6, chapter 30:
- […] Yeat too too forcible I feare to be forgot of some, / For slaunder set on foote, though false, is talkatiuely dome. / Malicious (for thy malice is thy matter all in all) / Is it to harlotize, thinkst thou, a Goddesse wrong too small, / But thou must forge it from the Earth, euen from the Sheep-cote? Nay, […]
- 2011, Will Cunningham, How to Win a Family Fight, page 165:
- "Then that's what you are!" I shrieked. “You're a devilwoman harlot who is trying to harlotize and demonize the time-tested and decent practice of fighting that every decent..."