meretrix
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]meretrix (plural meretrices)
- A prostitute in Ancient Rome.
- a. 100 CE, Petronius, translated by W. C. Firebaugh, Satyricon[1], published 1922:
- Nomus Marcellus has pointed out the difference between this class of prostitutes and the prostibula. "This is the difference between a meretrix (harlot) and a prostibula (common strumpet): a meretrix is of a more honorable station and calling; for meretrices are so named a merendo (from earning wages) because they plied their calling only by night; prostibulu because they stand before the stabulum (stall) for gain both by day and night."
- 1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 72:
- Hands grasped me like a doll, and as I dandled thus between the meretrices of Abaia, I was lifted from my broad-armed chair in the inn of Saltus; yet still, for perhaps a hundred heartbeats more, I could not rid my mind of the sea and its green-haired women.
- 2013, Ariadne Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins[2], Routledge, →ISBN:
- Of the two ritually important female categories, matrona and meretrix, it was the matrona that was held at a strict ritual distance. […] The domain of the meretrix was not held at a ritual distance. The boundary between male and female was not quite so stark when the female belonged to the category of prostitute.
Latin
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]- meritrix
- meletrix, meletris, menetrix, menetris (Late Latin, popular, dissimilation, cluster simplification, proscribed)
Etymology
[edit]From mereō (“to earn (a living)”) + -trīx (“agent noun suffix”), literally “the earner”.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Classical Latin) IPA(key): /ˈme.re.triːks/, [ˈmɛrɛt̪riːks̠]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈme.re.triks/, [ˈmɛːret̪riks]
Noun
[edit]meretrīx f (genitive meretrīcis, masculine meretor); third declension
- a female prostitute or courtesan
Usage notes
[edit]This word had a neutral connotation and could be said of high-status prostitutes, never the lowest-status ones.
Declension
[edit]Third-declension noun.
Case | Singular | Plural |
---|---|---|
Nominative | meretrīx | meretrīcēs |
Genitive | meretrīcis | meretrīcum |
Dative | meretrīcī | meretrīcibus |
Accusative | meretrīcem | meretrīcēs |
Ablative | meretrīce | meretrīcibus |
Vocative | meretrīx | meretrīcēs |
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Descendants
[edit]- Old Lombard: meltris
- Old French: meautris
- Occitan: meltris
- → Old English: myltestre, miltestre
- → Catalan: meretriu
- → English: meretrix
- → Galician: meretriz
- → Italian: meretrice
- → Portuguese: meretriz
- → Sicilian: miritrici
- → Spanish: meretriz
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- “meretrīx” in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present
- J. N. Adams (1983) “Words for 'prostitute' in Latin”, in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie[3], volume 126, number 3/4, →ISSN, pages 321–358
Further reading
[edit]- “meretrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “meretrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- meretrix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- “meretrix”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)mer- (allot)
- English terms borrowed from Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English nouns with irregular plurals
- English terms with quotations
- en:Ancient Rome
- Latin terms suffixed with -trix
- Latin 3-syllable words
- Latin terms with IPA pronunciation
- Latin lemmas
- Latin nouns
- Latin third declension nouns
- Latin feminine nouns in the third declension
- Latin feminine nouns
- la:Occupations
- la:Prostitution
- la:Female people