prostitute
Americannoun
-
prostitutes
plural
-
a person who engages in sexual intercourse or other sex acts for money; sex worker.
- Synonyms:
- strumpet, trollop, courtesan, streetwalker, call girl
-
a person who willingly uses their talent or ability in a base and unworthy way, usually for money.
verb (used with object)
-
prostitutes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
prostituted,
past participle, past
-
prostituting
present participle
-
to sell or offer (oneself) to provide sex acts for money.
-
to put to any base or unworthy use.
to prostitute one's talents.
noun
-
a woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money
-
a man who engages in such activity, esp in homosexual practices
-
a person who offers his talent or work for unworthy purposes
verb
-
to offer (oneself or another) in sexual intercourse for money
-
to offer (a person, esp oneself, or a person's talent) for unworthy purposes
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
prostitutesimple
-
prostitutessimple
-
have prostitutedperfect
-
has prostitutedperfect
-
am prostitutingprogressive
-
are prostitutingprogressive
-
is prostitutingprogressive
-
have been prostitutingperfect progressive
-
has been prostitutingperfect progressive
Past
-
prostitutedsimple
-
had prostitutedperfect
-
was prostitutingprogressive
-
were prostitutingprogressive
-
had been prostitutingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of prostitute
First recorded in 1530–40; from Latin prōstitūta and prōstitūtus, noun uses of feminine and masculine forms of prōstitūtus, past participle of prōstituere “to place before, expose (for sale),” equivalent to prō- “before” + -stitū-, combining form of statuere “to make stand” + -tus past participle suffix; see pro- 1, status
Explanation
A prostitute is someone who gets paid to have sex — the word usually refers to a woman, but there are male prostitutes as well. These days a prostitute is often called a sex worker, and there are many slang words, such as hooker and whore, that mean the same thing. A prostitute works for a pimp and her customers are called johns. You could say a woman is prostituting herself, or that the pimp is prostituting her. Sometimes people who hate their jobs feel like they're prostituting themselves, even though no sex is involved.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The authors were radical women from various backgrounds—one was an impoverished widow and another a onetime prostitute, while a third had been a princess who chopped off her hair moments before her wedding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
Mary Magdalene, here named Miri of Magdala, seizes the opportunity to announce that she’s not a prostitute, as long thought, but a wealthy divorcee.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 26, 2024
I should mention that the saintly striver is all the while giving support to a former prostitute, hoping to open a hospital and enduring a lung condition with a terminal prognosis.
From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2024
A skeleton covered in red ochre, which is naturally occurring iron oxide, Prof Buckland presumed The Red "Lady" to be a Roman prostitute, or witch.
From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2023
She was also an advocate for “free love,” a blackmailer, an accused bigamist, possibly a prostitute, and a spiritualist who claimed she channeled the spirit of Demosthenes, a statesman from ancient Greece.
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
At 24 Debs was elected Terre Haute city clerk, where the extent of his heterodoxy was waiving criminal fines against prostitutes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Fernando Botero, the Colombian whose voluptuous pictures and sculptures of overstuffed generals, bishops, prostitutes, housewives and other products of his whimsical imagination made him one of the world’s best-known artists, died on Friday in Monaco.
From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2023
Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, famously envisioned a “normal” Jewish state, with the ancient priests and seers supplanted by the prostitutes and thieves typical of a genuine nation.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 24, 2023
An Irish immigrant ministers to prostitutes from a South Bronx project.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2021
Blacktown crawled with white people, with pimps, prostitutes, bootleggers, with hustlers of all kinds, with colorful characters, and with police and prohibition agents.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
Key to the Nordic model, now implemented in Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Northern Ireland, Canada, France, Ireland and Israel, is creating an exit strategy for prostituted people.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
“Art, music, architecture, literature, all seem to have been prostituted in this commercial age to the greed for money,” Brundage wrote in “The Significance of Amateur Sport.”
From New York Times ● May 2, 2024
Pioneered in Sweden and adopted most recently in Canada and France, this strategy involves decriminalizing prostituted women and offering them housing, job training and other services.
From Washington Post ● May 31, 2016
If you follow the Nordic model, you are obligated to offer services and alternatives to the people who are prostituted.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 17, 2015
I have but my blasted reputation, my destitute condition, my debts, my crimes, my prostituted name.
From The Wayfarers by J. C. Snaith
Mr. Russell promised to be “as balanced as is humanly possible, without prostituting myself,” adding, “There are so many controversial issues that I have to double up to save time.”
From New York Times ● Mar. 30, 2023
Former Postmaster General Benjamin Bailar resigned from his position on the Citizen's Advisory Stamp Committee, stating that the Potter stamps amounted to "prostituting" the US stamp programme.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2017
Police said they do not think Lopez Aguilar was involved in trafficking or prostituting of the girls, but the investigation led police to the missing girls.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 10, 2017
Last month, Benjamin Bailar, a prominent stamp collector who served as postmaster general from 1975 to 1978, angrily resigned from the committee after accusing the postal service of "prostituting" its stamps program.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2014
At night he began to have trouble sleeping, to feel he was prostituting his conscience and his editorial responsibilities.
From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
