seducer

Etymology

It is formed from English seduce + -er.^[1][2] The OED compares Middle French seduiseur, recorded in the 15th century, and Old French seduissoir, recorded in the 14th.^[1] Seduce is from Middle French séduire and its source Latin sēdūcō (“to lead aside or away, lead astray”),^[1] from sē- (“aside, away”) and dūcō (“to lead”), from Proto-Indo-European *deuk- (“to lead”).^[2] An earlier agent noun, seductor, used by Caxton in the late 15th century, is now obsolete.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who leads someone astray or entices someone into wrongdoing, a corrupter: 1534, in Joye's Subuersion Moris False Found.^[1] Etymonline dates the word to the 1540s.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From 1548 to 1914 the noun also meant someone who induces another to break an agreement of service or a bond of loyalty to a master,^[1] matching the verb's early use of drawing a vassal away from his allegiance.^[2] The sexual sense, a man who induces a woman or girl into sex outside marriage, is recorded from 1579,^[1] following the verb's sexual sense of the 1550s, which Etymonline says was apparently not Latin,^[2] though the OED finds it in French from the early 15th century.^[1] It was later widened to anyone who persuades another into sex,^[1] and is the meaning Collins and Merriam-Webster Unabridged single out.^[3][4] Johnson (1755) still defined the word as "one who draws aside from the right; a tempter; a corrupter".^[5] Dryden extended it in 1677 to something that entices, an insidious temptation,^[1] and the older sense of a person who misleads is now rare.^[1] In US Black slang a seducer was recorded in 1983 as someone who supplies the means of making fast, possibly illegal, money.^[6]

Timeline

• 1534 – a person who leads someone astray or into wrongdoing; a corrupter.^[1] Etymonline dates the word to the 1540s.^[2]
• 1548 – a person who induces someone to break a bond of loyalty to a master or superior (obsolete by 1914).^[1]
• 1579 – a man who induces a woman or girl into non-marital sex.^[1]
• 1677 – something that entices a person away from the right course; an insidious temptation.^[1]
• 1983 – in US Black slang, someone who supplies the means of making fast, possibly illegal, money.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who persuades another to have sexual intercourse, originally a man who does so with a woman or girl: A practised seducer, he sent flowers to every new colleague.^[3][4][1]
2. (rare) A person who leads someone astray or into error or wrongdoing; a tempter, a corrupter.^[1][3][5]
3. Something that entices a person away from the right course; an insidious temptation.^[1]

Related words

• seductress
• seduce
• seduction
• seductive
• seductor

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com