A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address
To Shakespeare, who uses this word vocatively in, e.g. Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, Othello, ‘strumpet’ meant a prostitute. It is doubtful if a modern woman would understand it in that sense.
She would think it a very old-fashioned word, one which was expressing disapproval, but might not interpret it specifically as prostitute. ‘You audacious strumpet’ is used to Jenny Jones in Fielding’s Tom Jones. Love in Quiet Places, by Bernard Thompson, has one girl calling another ‘you cheap strumpet’. This novel was published in 1961, but the word is very rare in twentieth-century literature.
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