hedge whore
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From hedge (“third-rate”) + whore (“prostitute”). Compare hedge alehouse, hedge priest.
Noun
[edit]hedge whore (plural hedge whores)
- (historical) An inferior prostitute.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:prostitute
- 1653, Francis Rabelais [i.e., François Rabelais], translated by [Thomas Urquhart] and [Peter Anthony Motteux], “Of the Disposition of the People this Year”, in The Works of Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua, and His Sonne Pantagruel. […], London: […] [Thomas Ratcliffe and Edward Mottershead] for Richard Baddeley, […], →OCLC; republished in volume II, London: […] Navarre Society […], [1948], →OCLC, book the fifth, page 430:
- Those whom Venus is said to rule, as Punks, Jills, Flirts, Queans, Morts, Doxies, Strumpets, Buttocks, Blowings, Tits, Pure Ones, Concubines, Convenients, Cracks, Drabs, Trulls, Light-skirts, Wrigglers, Misses, Cats, Riggs, Try'd Virgins, Bonarobaes, Barbers Chairs, Hedge-whores, Wagtails, Cockatrices, Whipsters, Twiggers, Harlots, Kept-wenches, Kind-hearted-things, Ladies of Pleasure, by what Titles or Names soever dignified or distinguish'd;
- [1785, Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue[1]:
- HEDGE WHORE, an itinerant harlot, who bilks the bagnios and bawdy houſes, by diſpoſing of her favours, on the way ſide, under a hedge; a low beggarly proſtitute.]