Noun.
Plural: sluts.
Pronunciation: slʌt.
Etymology: of uncertain origin.
It is dated from the beginning of 1400.
1. A
woman who is usually careless of being clean, with her clothes and her skin
dirty, and her hair undressed; this is, an untidy woman; a female
person who neglects habitually to clean herself.
Antonyms:
dandy, fop, exquisite.
Synonyms: slattern,
sloven.
Translation: mujer que está
habitualmente sucia, in Spanish; femme qui est habituellement sale, in French; sozzona, in Italian.
[…] every one would strive to
produce butter of the best quality. The worst sort may be marked as grease and
put at a price accordingly; by which means the dirty slut, who packs bad and rancid butter, would find her tricks frustrated; and
the honest, cleanly dairy woman would be rewarded for her care and neatness.
Charles Hassall… Agriculture
of the county…
[…] after the Committee was
sat, I was called in; and the first thing was upon the complaint of a dirty slut that was there, about a ticket which she had lost, and had applied
herself to me for another.
Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, vol.
3
Personal cleanliness is so
well approved, that a sloven or a slut would want employment, hardly
any master or mistress would harbour them.
Henry Southern… The
Retrospective review, vol. 12
Wash your face! Yes, you dirty
slut, it wants washing.
The living age, vol. 48
Women are all day a dressing,
to pleasure other men abroad, and go like sluts at home, not caring to please their own husbands whom they should.
Robert Burton… The Anatomy of
Melancholy
2. It is of very rare use: a
person hired, or constrained, to drudge. Particularly, a kitchen-maid.
3. a. A
woman despised for her habits, as if she were dirty. b. Particularly, a woman despised for being a
prostitute.
Synonyms: hussy,
strumpet.
I decided from her laughing
and general manner that she was a slut if not a regular strumpet.
Walter… My secret life
[…] what she withheld from the
infant, she bestowed with the utmost profuseness on the poor unknown mother,
whom she called an impudent slut, a wanton hussy, an audacious harlot, […], a vile
strumpet […].
Henry Fielding… The History of
Tom Jones
4. (By analogy with the preceding uses) a female dog;
bitch.
The dogs came out at the
well-known tones, and the slut jumped upon his person, whining
and barking as if entreating Oliver to release her from prison.
J. Cooper… The pioneers
English words derived
from SLUT: slut (verb), sluttery, sluttish, sluttishly, sluttishness.
