Noun: meretrix
| Singular | meretrix |
| Plural | meretrices |
Sample Sentences
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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^([sic]) because they stand before the stabulum (stall) for gain both by day and night." [a. 100 CE, Petronius, translated by W. C. Firebaugh, Satyricon, published 1922:]
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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. [1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 72:]
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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. [2013, Ariadne Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins, Routledge, →ISBN:]
Nouns inflected like meretrix
spontaneous pneumothorax,
machinatrix,
contemplatrix,
comatrix,
effectrix,
wavelet matrix,
invertible matrix,
accusatrix,
meretrix,
symplectic matrix,
stochastic matrix,
paintrix,
eigenmatrix,
adjudicatrix,
annotatrix,
electrix,
objectrix,
benefactrix,
helix-loop-helix,
negotiatrix, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin meretrīx.