19th century slang for "slut"?

I assume you don't really men censors, but possibly if it will be offensive to some?

We are all offended by different things.

It might depend of where she is from. I have used 'slut' in one of my WIP set in London 1800s.

Will that offend readers? Possibly. Some. But those readers won't read past my first few chapters if that is the case, because the tone of my story is a little darker than say, a sweet and chaste romance, although it is not erotica. Part of it would depend on genre. Think about who your readers are.

You might try the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue for alternatives.

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5402/pg5402.html

Or this

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/slut

A woman who's easy, or of easy virtue?

19th Century where?

The term would be different depending on whether the setting is England or Boston or the Western US or Russia or what-have-you.

'round-heeled'?

You can start with harlot, trollop, and strumpet.

Slut itself was a word used in the 19th century, but it had VERY different connotations at that time.

It does depend heavily upon where and exactly when you're writing, this was a time when regionalism had a beautiful influence on language, and euphemism was much more prevalent as well.

It also depends on when in the 19th century you are talking about. 1899 and 1809 are quite different. And what is the class/sex/education of the person who is using the term?

"A fallen woman" (and variants on falling connoting moral decay/sexual license, eg "she fell" "she had fallen to a seducer," etc.)was in usage in the US, certainly from mid to late 19th century. It was used for prostitutes as well as women who had sex out of wedlock. You might not want to strain yourself looking for a perfect, exact distinction between prostitute & sexually active woman, as folks then didn't generally distinguish. Look at the ruckus Ben Butler stirred up with General Order No. 28.

Slattern

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slattern

merlot143 said:

I don't know if slut will make it past the censors. I need a word to describe a girl who sleeps around a lot. She's not a prostitute, just very, very friendly
Thanks.

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Dave Hardy said:

"A fallen woman" (and variants on falling connoting moral decay/sexual license, eg "she fell" "she had fallen to a seducer," etc.)was in usage in the US, certainly from mid to late 19th century. It was used for prostitutes as well as women who had sex out of wedlock. You might not want to strain yourself looking for a perfect, exact distinction between prostitute & sexually active woman, as folks then didn't generally distinguish. Look at the ruckus Ben Butler stirred up with General Order No. 28.

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I was going to bring up a similar point. Even if your gal wasn't plying the trade, if she was thought to be sexually active outside of marriage, she'd be considered--and called--a whore.

So, are you looking for names other characters can call her (that list is practically endless)? Or are you looking for the correct descriptive term to clue your readers into the fact that she sleeps around but isn't asking for payment (to be used in exposition)?

toffer

Not much use on slang, but interesting in that it provides insight to attitudes about sex and prostitution in small-town America, is Herbert Asbury's non-fiction piece "Hatrack". Asbury is best known for The Gangs of New York and similar works on Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco as well as history of gambling. Asbury was very much an iconoclast, which I guess is why Mencken ran "Hatrack." I found it under Google Books.