lady of pleasure

plural ladies of pleasure

1. A female prostitute or courtesan.First known use 17th c.

   I instructed her with all those things which a Lady of Pleasure ought to know, for the heaping up a Sum of Money wherewith she may maintain her self during her Old Age.

   1683, anonymous author, The London Jilt

   1 more example

   By 1765, a visitor to London noted that prints of celebrated ladies of pleasure were both extraordinarily cheap (‘a few guineas will buy a whole seraglio’) and were issued in huge editions, of three or four thousand at a time.

   2012, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex