courtesan means A female prostitute, especially one with high-status or wealthy clients. It carries an Arena rating of 1670, earned across 36 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, courtesan ranks #1,502 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,609 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #1,962 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #2,929 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
courtesan is pronounced /kɔːtɪˈzæn/.
Why “courtesan” is a great word
COURTESAN — [Noun] A prostitute whose clientele consists of wealthy, aristocratic, or high-status men, distinguished by her cultural refinement and elevated social standing. From Middle French courtisane, from Italian cortigiana (feminine of cortigiano, "courtier"), from corte ("court"), from Latin cohors ("enclosure, courtyard, retinue"). Unlike a "concubine," who occupies a fixed, domestic niche, or a "prostitute," whose work is crudely transactional, a courtesan traded in the polished currency of influence, wit, and cultivated allure. She is the rustle of silk in a private loge, the keeper of a salon where politics mingle with poetry, and the architect of a precarious autonomy built on princely whims—a professional whose artistry was perfected within the gilded enclosure of power, making the mercenary feel like a privilege.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French courtisane, from Italian cortigiana, feminine of cortigiano (“courtier”), from corte (“court”), itself from Latin cohors.
noun
- A female prostitute, especially one with high-status or wealthy clients.e.g.“What wine, what drug, what philtre known of man / Will drown this ancient foe, / Ruthless and ravenous as a courtesan, / Sure as an ant, and slow?” — 1909, Charles Baudelaire, “The Irreparable”, in John Collings Squire, transl., Poems and Baudelaire Flowers:
- The mistress of a royal or noble.
- A woman of a royal or noble court.
- A fairy chess piece that can move to any adjacent square, that, when captured, the capturing piece is also eliminated.e.g.“The courtesan moves like a mann, but whatever piece captures her is also removed from the board (unless it’s a king).” — 2018 October 12, aabicus, “My 7 Favorite Fairy Chess Pieces”, in The Daily SPUF:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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