Where does the word “harlot” come from and What does harlot mean in Old French?

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Karen Hill

An old dictionary in our possession, Thomas Blount’s Glossographia (1656), has this to say of the origin of the word “harlot”:

“Metonymically”, a word used as a substitute for another, “from Arlotta and Harlotha, Concubine to Robert Duke of Normandy, on whom he begat William the Bastard, Conqueror, and King of England; in spight to whom, and disgrace to his Mother, the English called all Whores Harlots.”

But, though an interesting story, it was taken by Blount from a piece of vague guesswork made by another writer a hundred years earlier, William Lambarde.

The word is actually a modification of Old French harlot, used in such a manner as we use “fellow.”

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