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.”
