prostitution

From Late Latin prostitutio.

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• Hyphenation: pros‧ti‧tu‧tion

prostitution (usually uncountable, plural prostitutions)

1. Engaging in sexual activity with another person for pay.
   • 2013 July 29, David Ingram (reporting for Reuters), Howard Goller & Bill Trott (editing for Reuters), “FBI arrests 150 in three days in sex-trafficking sweep”, in news.yahoo.com‎, retrieved 2013-07-29:

     The FBI typically does not investigate adult prostitution, leaving it as a state and local matter, but in recent years it has made child prostitution a priority in a program the FBI calls Operation Cross Country. The program includes highway billboards asking people to call the FBI with tips.

   Her addiction brought her to the point that prostitution was the only means she had to survive.

2. (by extension) Debasement for profit or impure motives.

   The television advertising job was a prostitution of the talents of one of the great writers of the century.

• harlotry
• oldest profession, world's oldest profession
• oldest occupation
• whoredom

• prostitute
• child prostitution

• IPA^(key): /pʁɔs.ti.ty.sjɔ̃/

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prostitution f (plural prostitutions)

1. prostitution

• prostituée
• prostituer

• “prostitution” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).