philanderer

American  

[fi-lan-der-er] / fɪˈlæn dər ər /

noun

1. a person, usually a man, who has many casual sexual encounters or affairs, especially when married or in a committed relationship.

   After three of his infidelities, she’d finally had enough of a husband who by all accounts had become a serial philanderer.

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Etymology

Origin of philanderer

philander ( def. ) + -er ¹ ( def. )

Explanation

A philanderer is a guy who likes women. A lot. So much that he's got a beautiful wife — and a date with a different girl every weekend. The phil in philanderer means "love" and a philanderer's love never seems to stop. "So many ladies, so little time..." — That may just be the motto of the quintessential philanderer, those delightful serial womanizers who specialize in brief affairs of the carnal kind. A philandering husband doesn't just have a wandering eye. He also has wandering hands, and probably a long line of jilted lovers.

Example Sentences

“Particularly when your disobedience threatens to upend how the business makes money. In Hollywood you can be an addict, be a philanderer, be outspoken. But don’t disrupt the cash flow.”

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 1, 2026

Events come to a head and the skillfully written climax is so distant and chilly that it speaks to a waning of interest in the figure of the philanderer.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 31, 2025

I could tell them he wasn’t an American veteran at all—he was Canadian, and he was actually pretty rabidly anti-American, an oil engineer–turned–environmentalist, a serial philanderer.

From Slate • Sep. 22, 2024

“I always had a lot of doubts” about the role of a philanderer whose antics catch up with him, Giménez Cacho said.

From New York Times • Dec. 16, 2022

That autumnal vestal proclaimed that it was anything but suitable literature for an old philanderer who still saw fit to live alone.

From The Prairie Child by Ward. E. F. (Edmund Franklin)