whore
[ hawr, hohr or, often, hoor ]
/ hɔr, hoʊr or, often, hʊər /
noun
verb (used without object), whored, whor·ing.
verb (used with object), whored, whor·ing.
to put to a base or unworthy use (sometimes followed by out): He’s whoring out his skills by writing for popular magazines.
Obsolete.
to make a whore of; corrupt; debauch.
Origin of whore
before 1100; Middle English, Old English
hōre; cognate with German
Hure, Old Norse
hōra; akin to Gothic
hors harlot, Latin
cārus dear
historical usage of whore
As far as etymology goes,
whore is unblemished: It’s from Old English
hōre, from the Germanic root
hō-, extended with a suffixed
-r, thus
hōr-.
The Germanic root is a regular development of the Proto-Indo-European root kā- “to like, desire” (extended with the same suffixed -r ). Kār- appears in Latin in cārus “dear, beloved, expensive,” and in the noun cāritās “love, affection, high price” (and through Old French, in charity meaning “Christian love”). Kār- appears in the Celtic languages as cara in Irish, and car in Welsh and Breton, all meaning “friend.” In Slavic (Polish), we find kurva.
The unetymological spelling, with initial w- (as also occurs in whole ), became common about 1600.
Nell Gwyn (1650-87), one of King Charles II’s numerous mistresses, made the best comeback ever recorded: When she was surrounded in her coach by a Protestant mob who thought she was Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649–1734), a Catholic woman and another of King Charles’s mistresses, Nell leaned out of her coach and shouted down the mob with “Pray good people be civil, I am the King’s Protestant whore.”
The Germanic root is a regular development of the Proto-Indo-European root kā- “to like, desire” (extended with the same suffixed -r ). Kār- appears in Latin in cārus “dear, beloved, expensive,” and in the noun cāritās “love, affection, high price” (and through Old French, in charity meaning “Christian love”). Kār- appears in the Celtic languages as cara in Irish, and car in Welsh and Breton, all meaning “friend.” In Slavic (Polish), we find kurva.
The unetymological spelling, with initial w- (as also occurs in whole ), became common about 1600.
Nell Gwyn (1650-87), one of King Charles II’s numerous mistresses, made the best comeback ever recorded: When she was surrounded in her coach by a Protestant mob who thought she was Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649–1734), a Catholic woman and another of King Charles’s mistresses, Nell leaned out of her coach and shouted down the mob with “Pray good people be civil, I am the King’s Protestant whore.”
Words nearby whore
whoosis,
whoosy,
whop,
whopper,
whopping,
whore,
whoredom,
whorehouse,
whorehouse cut,
whoremaster,
whoremonger
British Dictionary definitions for whoring
whore
/ (hɔː) /
noun
a prostitute or promiscuous woman: often a term of abuse
verb (intr)
to be or act as a prostitute
(of a man) to have promiscuous sexual relations, esp with prostitutes
(often foll by after)
to seek that which is immoral, idolatrous, etc
Derived forms of whore
whorish, adjective whorishly, adverb whorishness, nounWord Origin for whore
Old English
hōre; related to Old Norse
hōra, Old High German
hvora, Latin
carus dear