noun
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a shameless or promiscuous woman
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dialect a folder for needles, thread, etc
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hussy
1520–30; earlier hussive housewife
Explanation
A hussy is a woman or girl who's disrespectful or immoral. Your old fashioned grandmother might call your brother's live-in girlfriend a hussy. The noun hussy is an insulting and somewhat antique way to refer to a woman whose actions don't line up with traditional ideas of being respectable. A sexually bold women is most likely to be called a hussy, especially if she's seen as "stealing" another woman's partner. Originally, hussy was a shortening of the Middle English husewif, "housewife." Through the 1500's, hussy came to mean "any woman or girl," and by the 1650's it meant "an improper woman or girl."
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.
Shameless Hussy Press was a shoestring operation in 1969 when the poet known as Alta began publishing books from her house on a hand-cranked offset printer.
From New York Times • May 17, 2024
“The euro zone economy is booming, but the pace is slowing noticeably,” Sentix Managing Director Patrick Hussy said.
From Reuters • Aug. 9, 2021
"When I first started as a lawyer, my boss in Wooster was this guy named Mike Hussy, who is an amazing attorney," Sellitti told me.
From Salon • Jul. 1, 2020
“It was stale, greasy, spicy, crunchy, saucy and just plain strange,” said Ms. Johnson, a 43-year-old director of operations at an advertising agency in Cincinnati and author of a blog called the Food Hussy.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 3, 2017
No, no, Hussy; you have the Green Pip already, I'll have no more Apothecary's Bills.
From The Busie Body by Byrd, Jess
Definitions 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.
