slut

[ sluht ]
See synonyms for slut on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. Disparaging and Offensive. a person, especially a woman, who is sexually promiscuous.

  2. Informal. a person with a seemingly insatiable but often undiscerning desire to do or have something specified: guilty of being a shoe slut; a book slut, reading five books at once.

  1. Archaic.

    • a prostitute; harlot.

    • an immoral or dissolute woman.

    • a dirty, slovenly woman.

Origin of slut

1
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English slutte; compare dialectal slut “mud,” Norwegian (dialectal) slutr “sleet, impure liquid”

word story For slut

In the early 1400s, when slut first appeared in English, it meant roughly what one sense of slattern means today: a slovenly, untidy woman or girl. It also apparently meant “kitchen maid” (”She is a cheerful slut who keeps the pots scrubbed and the fires hot.”). By the end of the 15th century, the sense “a woman given to immoral or improper conduct” had come into use, but this meaning is not current today. Interestingly, slattern also developed the meaning "prostitute, harlot." Some feminists have reclaimed the word slut and use it to mean a sexually liberated woman.

Words Nearby slut

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use slut in a sentence

  • This island was of the drift formation, and as late as half a century ago, a portion of it still remained, being called slut Bush.

  • Then suspecting that she was shut up with a gallant, he struck great blows upon the door and began to shout 'slut!

    Penguin Island | Anatole France
  • "The Cub-slut" answered in the negative, by an energetic movement of her head.

    Csar or Nothing | Po Baroja Baroja

British Dictionary definitions for slut

slut

/ (slʌt) /


noun
  1. derogatory a dirty slatternly woman

  2. derogatory an immoral woman

  1. archaic a female dog

Origin of slut

1
C14: of unknown origin

Derived forms of slut

  • sluttish, adjective
  • sluttishly, adverb
  • sluttishness, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012