courtezan

a courtezan might be her idol, and a madman her priest.

Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2 Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay 1829

It was no longer a home; children were never born and bred there; the fireside had become mercenary — a something to be bought and sold — a very courtezan: let who would die, or sit beside, or leave it, it was still the same — it missed nobody, cared for nobody, had equal warmth and smiles for all.

Barnaby Rudge 2007

True, the same power which in the purer age of art embodies gods and heroes only, may be made to express the voluptuous image of a Corinthian courtezan.

The Republic by Plato ; translated by Benjamin Jowett 2006

At first the stranger laughed at my tears and my agony, as the hysterical passion of a deluded and overreached wanton, or the wily affection of a courtezan.

The Fortunes of Nigel 2004

The Stygian's choice of language would have shamed the toughest courtezan in Aquilonia.

The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian Howard, Robert E. 2003

To avenge his wrongs, and the loss of his betrothed, who is given to his rival and dies, he blows up the steamer in presence of an assembled multitude, and quits his native land with a courtezan who has conceived a liking for him and will provide him with money to recommence his enterprise elsewhere.

Balzac 2003

The theme, that of the courtezan in love, was a favourite one with the classical school, and much of the ancient style and tone pervades it; yet its atmosphere is a modern one, the expression of its sentiment is modern too, and the accessories are supplied with an eye to material and moral exactitude.

Balzac 2003

The Stygian's choice of language would have shamed the toughest courtezan in Aquilonia.

The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian Howard, Robert E. 2003

No; he can rob her with impunity, even to waste publicly on a courtezan; and the laws of her country — if women have a country — afford her no protection or redress from the oppressor, unless she have the plea of bodily fear; yet how many ways are there of goading the soul almost to madness, equally unmanly, though not so mean?

Maria; or The Wrongs of Woman 2002

A visitor to the city in 1744 was told by his guide “that to walk out after dusk upon this platform was a good way for a stranger to fit himself with a courtezan, for that place was the generall rendezvous of the fair sex of that profession after sun set with a good choice of pritty lasses among them, both English and Dutch.”

Angel in the Whirlwind Benson Bobrick 1997