scarlet woman

[ skahr-lit woom-uhn ]

noun

1. a sexually promiscuous woman, especially a prostitute or a woman who commits adultery.
2. a symbol of pagan Rome or, derogatorily, of the church of Rome.

scarlet woman

noun

1. New Testament a sinful woman described in Revelation 17, interpreted as a figure either of pagan Rome or of the Roman Catholic Church regarded as typifying vice overlaid with gaudy pageantry
2. any sexually promiscuous woman, esp a prostitute

Word History and Origins

Origin of scarlet woman¹

First recorded in 1810–20; from the Bible, in which an enemy of God personified as “the whore of Babylon” is described as dressed in scarlet and purple

Idioms and Phrases

A prostitute, an immoral woman, as in Malicious gossip had it that she was a scarlet woman, which was quite untrue . This expression first appeared in Revelation 17:5, describing Saint John's vision of a woman in scarlet clothes with an inscription on her forehead, “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” Some interpreters believe she stood for Rome, drunk with the blood of saints, but by about 1700 the term was being used more generally for a woman with loose morals.

Example Sentences

She was the scarlet woman of mid-19th century Paris, damned by her contemporaries and by literary historians ever since.

From The Daily Beast

Then we're going to celebrate by taking him over to the theater and making him see 'The Scarlet Woman.'

From Project Gutenberg

To the non-compromiser, the "scarlet woman" is a symbol of the lowest depth of vice, and no condemnation is too severe for her.

From Project Gutenberg

Mrs Stumfold had once met Mr Paul, and called him to his face the most abject of all the slaves of the scarlet woman.

From Project Gutenberg

To the sophisticated its allurements are those of the scarlet woman, to the innocent its voice is the voice of Joy.

From Project Gutenberg

I did not guess then that there was anything between him and the Scarlet Woman who railed at Bigot.

From Project Gutenberg