Definitions

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  • noun Plural form of hetaera.

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Examples

  • Minas made a ghastly joke about our women possessing all the social skills of natural hetaerae; he gushingly praised them as dancers, singers, and conversationalists.

    See Delphi and Die Davis, Lindsey 2005

  • (Athenaeus, i, 25) and lived in a much later age, doubtless belonged to the _hetaerae_ class.

    A Short History of Women's Rights From the Days of Augustus to the Present Time. with Special Reference to England and the United States. Second Edition Revised, With Additions. Eugene A. Hecker

  • The only exceptions were the hetaerae, i.e. the women who were outside the home circle and who with greater freedom of living combined higher culture than the legitimate wife could hope for.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy 1840-1916 1913

  • Learning and charm and grace of mind were for the others, the _hetaerae_ of whom they asked no tiresome ties.

    Three Weeks Elinor Glyn 1903

  • Nothing in all Latin poetry is so unpleasant as his brutal attacks on those _hetaerae_ (the only ladies of whom he seems to have had any knowledge) whose caprice or neglect had offended him.

    The History of Roman Literature From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius Charles Thomas Cruttwell 1879

  • His works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Eros, in which adoration for corporeal attractions is the most marked peculiarity, and for which the artist was fitted by his life with the hetaerae.

    The Old Roman World, : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization. John Lord 1852

  • Laïs several famous hetaerae of ancient Greece had this name -- one was regarded as the most beautiful woman of her age; "Laïs" was used proverbially as a name for a woman of great pulchritude.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol VIII No 3 1981

  • These women are the intellectual equals and often the superiors of the men they meet; they are very attractive as companions, like Miss Mehr, the university student, in Hauptmann's "Lonely Lives," who alienated the young husband from his noble wife; they enjoy all the keen pleasures of intellectual activity; their very look, step, and bearing is free; their mentality makes them good fellows and companionable in all the broad intellectual spheres; to converse with them is as charming and attractive for the best men as was Socrates's discourse with the accomplished hetaerae; they are at home with the racquet and on the golf links; they are splendid friends; their minds, in all their widening areas of contact, are as attractive as their bodies; and the world owes much and is likely to owe far more to high Platonic friendships of this kind.

    Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene G. Stanley Hall 1885

  • hetaerae,” and, as by her beauty and her talents, she attained the first rank in the social class, her name has come down to posterity with those of Aspasia and Leontium, while the less distinguished favorites of less celebrated men have shared the common oblivion, which hides from the memory of men, every degree of mediocrity, whether of virtue or vice.

    Ninon de L'Enclos the Celebrated Beauty of the 17th Century Robinson, Charles Henry 1903

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