kept woman
English
Etymology
kept + woman
Noun
kept woman (plural kept women)
- A woman who is supported financially by a lover (usually a married man).
- Synonym: sugar baby
- Coordinate term: kept man
- 1912, David Graham Phillips, The Price She Paid, ch. 6:
- He said: "Why bother about a career? After all, kept woman is a thoroughly respectable occupation—or can be made so by any preacher or justice of the peace. . . ."
- "I could not belong to a man unless I cared for him," said she.
- 1919, Jerome K. Jerome, chapter 5, in All Roads Lead to Calvary:
- "I'm a kept woman," she explained. "What else is any woman?"
- 1932 Aug. 8, "Cinema: The New Pictures," Time:
- Fannie Hurst's tender and moving biography of a kept woman is here reproduced in a sincere, detailed picture. Irene Dunne . . . falls in love with John Boles, a pedigreed young banker, who by a series of misunderstandings, makes her his mistress instead of his wife.
Translations
woman supported financially by a lover
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