streetwalker

American  

[street-waw-ker] / ˈstritˌwɔ kər /

noun

1. a prostitute who solicits on the streets.

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streetwalker British  

/ ˈstriːtˌwɔːkə /

noun

1. a prostitute who solicits on the streets

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Other Word Forms

• streetwalking noun

Etymology

Origin of streetwalker

First recorded in 1585–95; street + walker

Example Sentences

A wealthy man with multiple well-appointed homes in glamorous cities, and also a bedraggled streetwalker who compulsively picks up roadside garbage by the bagful.

From Washington Post • Oct. 4, 2021

He updates Gary’s story, whose heroine is a Holocaust survivor turned streetwalker turned children’s caretaker, intelligently and resourcefully.

From New York Times • Nov. 12, 2020

She won Joseph Jefferson Awards — the city’s premier theater honor — in plays such as Lanford Wilson’s “Balm in Gilead,” portraying a streetwalker, and Lynn Siefert’s “Coyote Ugly,” as an ill-fortuned young wife.

From Washington Post • Jun. 9, 2017

As Ms. Kent glides from one act to the next — the ingénue becomes a courtesan and, finally, a shattered streetwalker — that tension instills her Manon with a wistful complexity.

From New York Times • Jun. 3, 2014

There was no interesting toil to relieve their unhappy lot, and no distinction was made of the insane, the law-breaking criminal, and the wretched streetwalker or demimondaine.

From Orphans of the Storm by MacMahon, Henry