# meretrix
## English
### Etymology

Borrowed from Latin meretrīx.

### Noun

meretrix (plural meretrices)
* A prostitute in Ancient Rome.
** a. 100 CE, Petronius, translated by W. C. Firebaugh, Satyricon‎, published 1922:Nomus Marcellus has pointed out the difference between this class of prostitutes and the prostibula. "This is the difference between a meretrix (harlot) and a prostibula (common strumpet): a meretrix is of a more honorable station and calling; for meretrices are so named a merendo (from earning wages) because they plied their calling only by night; prostibulu because they stand before the stabulum (stall) for gain both by day and night."
** 1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 72:Hands grasped me like a doll, and as I dandled thus between the meretrices of Abaia, I was lifted from my broad-armed chair in the inn of Saltus; yet still, for perhaps a hundred heartbeats more, I could not rid my mind of the sea and its green-haired women.
** 2013, Ariadne Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins‎, Routledge, →ISBN:Of the two ritually important female categories, matrona and meretrix, it was the matrona that was held at a strict ritual distance. […] The domain of the meretrix was not held at a ritual distance. The boundary between male and female was not quite so stark when the female belonged to the category of prostitute.

## Latin
### Alternative forms

* meritrix
* meretris, meletrix, meletris, menetrix, menetris (Late Latin, popular, dissimilation, cluster simplification, proscribed)

### Etymology

From mereō (“to earn (a living)”) +‎ -trīx (“agent noun suffix”), literally “the earner”.

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈme.re.triːks/, [ˈmɛrɛt̪riːks̠]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈme.re.triks/, [ˈmɛːret̪riks]

### Noun

meretrīx f (genitive meretrīcis, masculine meretor); third declension
* a female prostitute or courtesan

#### Usage notes

This word had a neutral connotation and could be said of high-status prostitutes, never the lowest-status ones.

#### Declension

Third-declension noun.

#### Derived terms

* meretrīcābilis
* meretrīciē
* meretrīcius
* meretrīcor
* meretrīcula

#### Related terms

* merenda
* merendārius
* merendō
* merēns
* mereō
* meritō
* meritōrium
* meritōrius
* meritum
* meritus

#### Descendants

* Old Lombard: meltris
* Old French: meautris
* Occitan: meltris
* → Old English: myltestre, miltestre
* → Catalan: meretriu
* → English: meretrix
* → Galician: meretriz
* → Italian: meretrice
* → Portuguese: meretriz
* → Sicilian: miritrici
* → Spanish: meretriz

#### See also

* lēna

### References

* “meretrīx” in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present
* J. N. Adams (1983) “Words for 'prostitute' in Latin”, in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie‎, volume 126, number 3/4, →ISSN, pages 321–358

### Further reading

* “meretrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “meretrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* meretrix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* “meretrix”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers