light-o'-love
Americannoun
-
a lover.
-
a prostitute.
Etymology
Origin of light-o'-love
First recorded in 1570–80
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.
Hylas, the not exactly "comic man," but light-o'-love and inconstant shepherd, was rather a bone of contention among critics of the book's own century.
From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 by George Saintsbury
My melancholy is like her's—the ancient light-o'-love of whom I spoke just now, when she sits by the fire in the dusk, a miniature of her past self in her hand.
From Confessions of a Young Man by George (George Augustus) Moore
A man of letters who would parody his early style is no better than the ancient light-o'-love who wears a wig and reddens her cheeks.
From Confessions of a Young Man by George (George Augustus) Moore
They had been distinctly interesting to Derek, these glimpses of a joyous, idle, light-o'-love life, with a tragic element never very far below its surface, so different from his own gray career of business.
From The Inner Shrine by Basil King
It was that, during her "Bohemian" period, he had endeavoured to fill the empty niche left in her affections by the departure of that light-o'-love, Captain Lennox, and had been repulsed for his pains.
From The Magnificent Montez From Courtesan to Convert by Horace Wyndham
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.
