loose woman
2
8.5
- noun
- /lus ˈwʊmən/
- Offensive
:
puta
- After he reads that dreadful bit of gossip in The Tatler, he'll think I'm a loose woman.
- attracted to loose woman
Examples
-
Do not go to meet a loose woman, lest you fall into her snares.
Blog text (3) -
"Do the mothers think I'm a loose woman?" she asked Tom.
Fiction book (1994) -
You come across any more loose women, you let me know.
-
Now, she was what you might call a loose woman.
-
A loose woman named Shug Avery.
-
When her oldest son married a "loose" woman, there was an explosion of gossip behind the woman's back.
Fiction book (1998) -
"You're a loose woman, Nora," was all he said.
Fiction book (1998) -
He drinks, he smokes, and he cavorts with loose women.
Fiction book (1998) -
Tillie Qualtrough had been a loose woman, plain and simple, and she'd taken to camp long before the war came and made a profitable enterprise of the habit.
Fiction book (2002) -
People often label her a loose woman because of her lifestyle choices.
Synonyms
300
9.6
A woman who has many casual sexual partners and the word is offensive
1
7.9
A woman who has casual sexual relationships with several partners
1
9.9
A woman who has sex with someone she is not married to
1
9.9
An old insulting word for a woman who is unfaithful
Antonyms
How Faithful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a woman with loose morals / sexually promiscuous' follows directly from combining 'loose' (unrestrained in behavior or morals) with 'woman', so the overall sense is compositional and predictable. Although the phrase is derogatory and socially marked, its meaning is literal enough and cross-linguistically paralleled, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would likely infer it.
Etymology
Loose woman may come from the simple image of something loose, not tied down like a loose rope that moves freely. So people used loose for a woman who was seen as free in her private life, and the phrase came to mean a woman who 'has many sexual partners' or is seen as 'immoral' by others.