Etymology

pimp

P3I1M3P3

Today it means: Someone who solicits customers for prostitution and acts as manager for a group of prostitutes; a pander. Full definition →

French pimpant ← German Pimpf
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pimp · noun, verb, adjective1

  1. German · borrowed fromPimpf“a boy, a youth, a young squirt”
  2. French · derived frompimpant“smart, sparkish”
  3. English todaypimp

Origin unknown. Perhaps from French pimpant (“smart, sparkish”) or German Pimpf (“a boy, a youth, a young squirt”). The Old English near-synonym was rendered by Old English forspennend (literally “a solicitor”).

pimp · numeral2

  1. Proto-Brythonic · derived from*pɨmp
  2. Brythonic · derived from
  3. English todaypimp

From Brythonic numerals, from Proto-Brythonic *pɨmp. Cognate with Welsh pump, Cornish pymp, Breton pemp. Doublet of cinque, fin (“five currency units”), finnuf, five, ponzu, punch (“beverage”), and sengi (“currency”); related to Pompeii.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.