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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

whore.

Synonym of prostitute: a person (especially a woman) who offers sexual services for payment.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/hɔː/Received-Pronunciation/hɔɚ/General-American/ho(ː)ɚ//hoə/
  1. Synonym of prostitute: a person (especially a woman) who offers sexual services for payment.

    derogatory · vulgar
  2. A person who is sexually promiscuous; a slut.

    derogatory · vulgar
  3. A person who is unscrupulous, especially one who compromises their principles for gain.

    derogatory · vulgar
  4. A person who will violate behavioral standards to achieve something desired.

    derogatory · vulgar
  5. A contemptible person.

    derogatory · vulgar
Where this word comes from

From Middle English hore, from Old English hōre, from Proto-Germanic *hōrǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *kéh₂ros (“loved”), from *keh₂- (“to wish; desire”). Cognate with Dutch hoer, German Hure, Old Norse hóra as well as Sanskrit चारु (cā́ru, “dear”), Latin cārus (“dear, expensive”), and Irish cara (“friend”). The unetymological spelling with wh- superficially denotes a formerly standard pronunciation with an excrescent /w/ (such as in whole), but such a form is hardly found in either commentators on Early Modern English pronunciations or records of traditional dialects (which both explicitly mention its rarity or absence), therefore leaving the spelling somewhat inexplicable. However, this may be because such an excrescent /w/ was absorbed by a following /uː/ (as in words with etymological /w/ such as whom, two) after it became established in the spelling but before our earliest orthoepic records.

verb/hɔː/Received-Pronunciation/hɔɚ/General-American/ho(ː)ɚ//hoə/
  1. To prostitute oneself.

    derogatory · intransitive · vulgar
  2. To engage the services of a prostitute.

    derogatory · intransitive · vulgar
  3. To pimp; to pander.

    derogatory · transitive · vulgar
  4. To promote shamelessly.

    derogatory · transitive · vulgar
    Did you see him on that chat show, whoring his new book?
  5. To pursue false gods.

    derogatory · intransitive · vulgar
  6. To pursue false goals.

    derogatory · intransitive · vulgar
  7. To overuse something.

    derogatory · slang · transitive · vulgar
    BTW, that guy whuz still an asshole - camping the BFG and whoring the quad - I usually leave BFG maps but stuck around on that one and suicided quite a bit (3 times I got to about -10 frags, then came back to 0...).
Where this word comes from

From Middle English hore, from Old English hōre, from Proto-Germanic *hōrǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *kéh₂ros (“loved”), from *keh₂- (“to wish; desire”). Cognate with Dutch hoer, German Hure, Old Norse hóra as well as Sanskrit चारु (cā́ru, “dear”), Latin cārus (“dear, expensive”), and Irish cara (“friend”). The unetymological spelling with wh- superficially denotes a formerly standard pronunciation with an excrescent /w/ (such as in whole), but such a form is hardly found in either commentators on Early Modern English pronunciations or records of traditional dialects (which both explicitly mention its rarity or absence), therefore leaving the spelling somewhat inexplicable. However, this may be because such an excrescent /w/ was absorbed by a following /uː/ (as in words with etymological /w/ such as whom, two) after it became established in the spelling but before our earliest orthoepic records.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.