Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An ancient Greek courtesan or concubine, especially one of a special class of cultivated female companions.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In ancient Greece, a woman, particularly a slave or a foreigner, devoted to public or private entertainment, making a profession of flute-playing, dancing, etc., and in some cases rising to high consideration for learning, talents, and the social arts; hence, a courtezan; an avowed concubine or female paramour. At Athens only daughters of full citizens could become, under the law, wives of citizens; thus, Aspasia of Miletus, the accomplished companion of Pericles, was, as a foreigner, classed as a hetæra. Also written hetaira, plural hetairai.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A female paramour; a mistress, concubine, or harlot.
Etymologies
- Greek hetaira, feminine of hetairos, companion; see s(w)e- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Roman hetaera, relief, around 2nd century — head is missing.”
“Pericles' celebrated hetaera, Aspasia, came from Miletos.”
“The godlike Xenocrates showed this by the firmness of his reason, who was declared by the famous hetaera Phryne to be a statue and not a man, when all her blandishments could not shake his resolve, as Valerius Maximus relates at length.”
“He owned a shield factory and was wealthy enough to have a hetaera, a high-class prostitute, if that's what Aspasia was.”
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
“A great hetaera never proposes a contract and usually won't listen if a man is bold enough to propose one himself.”
Time Enough For Love
“You see, a friend of mine, wife of another friend and they were both close to me-as a special gift she introduced me to another hetaera, a great beauty, and arranged for me a holiday with her-paid for by my friends; they could afford it, she is wealthy.”
Time Enough For Love
“I'm not speaking of technique; I suspect that any high-priced hetaera in New Rome is as skilled as any famous courtesan in history.”
Time Enough For Love
“Not a slut, but what is a hetaera; and not a hetaera, but what is well-nigh Kypris herself!”
“In Xenophon. [28] he goes with a friend to a hetaera, who is sitting as a model for a painter, and instructs her in the art of enticing men.”
“Aspasia took advantage of this and became a hetaera, or really high class hooker.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hetaera’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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