Etymologically
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prostituta

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Forms

prōstitūta f (genitive prōstitūtae); first declension[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin prōstituō (“to expose publicly, prostitute”), the feminine of its perfect passive participle used as a noun.[1][2][3] The verb is formed from prō- (“forth, in front”) and statuō (“to set up”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a noun it is found in Seneca,[5][2] meaning a woman who sells herself publicly, a prostitute.[1][5]

Semantic evolution

Pliny the Elder and Suetonius also use it as a noun,[5][6][2] while the participle itself stayed an adjective, “publicly offered, for sale”: Tertullian even forms a superlative, prostitutissima lupa.[2][6] Köbler records the noun in Tertullian and in the glossaries, where it is glossed with Old High German words for a harlot.[3] It remained in Church Latin with the sense “prostitute, harlot”[7] and passed into Italian as prostituta.[5]

Timeline

  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it as a noun for a prostitute.[5][3]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses the noun in the Natural History.[5][3]
  • c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of a woman of the streets.[6][3]
  • c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses the noun and the superlative of the participle.[3][2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A prostitute, whore.[1][2]
  2. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A harlot.[7]

Usage notes

The masculine prōstitūtus was used in the same way for a male prostitute.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson