slattern

plural slatterns

1. derogatoryA slut, a sexually promiscuous woman.

   Synonyms: NB: All terms are usually pejorative unless stated otherwise., 304, alley cat, alleycat, amorette, amoret, amorosa, article

2. datedOne who is uncareful or unconcerned about appearance or surroundings, usually said of a dirty and untidy woman.

   […] How many times I have heard a woman called a slattern, because she could not keep a house in order, when had she been allowed to write out her sublime thoughts, which were all in another direction, she would have astonished the world with her genius.

   1868 September 17, Lizzie Leavenworth, Slattern Genius; quoted in 2001 by Anne Russo and Cherise Kramarae in The Radical Women’s Press of the 1850s, page 202

   3 more examples

   3. Cookery is familiar to her, with the price and quality of provisions; and she is a ready accountant. Her chief view, however, is to serve her mother and lighten her cares. She holds cleanliness and neetness to be indispensable in a woman; and that a slattern is disgusting, especially if beautiful.

   1809, Noah Webster, Esq., An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking: Calculated to Improve the Minds and Refine the Taste of Youth, to Which are Prefixed Rules in Elocution and Directions for Expressing the Principal Passions of the Mind, page 24

   A dunce he always was, it is true; for learning cannot be acquired by leaving school and entering at college as a fellow-commoner; but he was now (in his own peculiar manner) as great a dandy as he before had been a slattern, and when he entered his sitting-room to join his two guests, arrived scented and arrayed in fine linen, and perfectly splendid in appearance.

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

   AMANDA: I’ve been brought up to believe that it’s beyond the pale, for a man to strike a woman. ELYOT: A very poor tradition. Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs. AMANDA: You’re an unmitigated cad, and a bully. ELYOT: And you’re an ill-mannered, bad tempered slattern. AMANDA (loudly): Slattern indeed. ELYOT: Yes, slattern, slattern, slattern, and fishwife. VICTOR: Keep your mouth shut, you swine.

   1933, Noel Coward, Private Lives: an Intimate Comedy in Three Acts, act 3

   Synonyms: moggy