temple prostitute

English

Alternative forms

• temple-prostitute

Noun

temple prostitute (plural temple prostitutes)

1. (historical, biblical) A prostitute who is employed at a temple.
   • 1895, Wilbur Fisk Crafts, Practical Christian Sociology, page 260:

     As to his daughters, this Hindu will strangle one at birth, train a second for marriage, and consecrate a third to the enrichment of his religion as a temple prostitute, thinking the last act even more meritorious than the marriage and the first quite as much within his "liberty."

   • 1909, Iwan Bloch, The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization, page 106:

     In the Madras Presidency alone there are about 12,000 of these temple prostitutes.

   • 2000, Carol Meyers, Ross Shepard Kraemer, Toni Craven, Women in Scripture, A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books and the New Testament:

     Her supposed role as a temple prostitute has been thought to provide proof that her Israelite counterpart, the qědēšâ, likewise had a sexual function in the cult.

2. (historical, biblical) An individual, usually a woman, engaged in sexual acts as part of religious worship.

Derived terms

• temple prostitution

Translations

a prostitute who is employed at a temple

Ancient Greek (please verify) μαλακός m (malakós) Chinese: Mandarin: 廟妓 / 庙妓 (miàojì) Hebrew: (please verify) קָדֵשׁ m (qadesh)

woman who engages in sexual acts of worship

Hebrew: (please verify) קְדֵשָׁה f (qdeshah)

See also

• money changer
• sodomite