doxy
nounEtymology From -doxy in orthodoxy, heterodoxy, etc.
1
Colloquial A defined opinion.
- Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man's doxy.1759, William Warburton, letter to Lord Sandwich:
doxy
nounUK /ˈdɒksi/
Etymology Perhaps from Middle Dutch *doketje, diminutive of Middle Dutch docke (“a doll”), from Proto-Germanic *dokko (“something round”), related to *dukkǭ (“muscle, strength”). Cognate with Low German dokke (“doll”), Saterland Frisian dok, dokke (“a doll”), Swedish docka (“doll, puppet”).
1
Archaic A sweetheart, a prostitute, a mistress or kept woman.
- He did not relish the apparition of that Katherine, for when it appeared it seemed to bring with it a brother shadow that wore ragged clothes and tangled hair and foul linen, that drank from any flagon and drabbed with any doxy, that slept in tavern angles through hours of drunkenness, a thing whose fingers pillaged, filched, and pilfered when and where they could, a creature that once he saw whenever he stared into a mirror.1907, Justin Huntly McCarthy, Needles and pins, page 82:
- Do you think the writer of Antony and Cleopatra, a passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the back of his head that he chose the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie withal?1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:
3 more examples
- However, terrible as it may seem to the tall maiden sisters of J.P.'s in Queen Anne houses with walled vegetable gardens, this courtesan, strumpet, harlot, whore, punk, fille de joie, street-walker, this trollop, this trull, this baggage, this hussy, this drab, skit, rig, quean, mopsy, demirep, demimondaine, this wanton, this fornicatress, this doxy, this concubine, this frail sister, this poor Queenie—did actually solicit me, did actually say 'coming home to-night, dearie' and my soul was not blasted enough to call a policeman.1936, Anthony Bertram, Like the Phoenix:
- "I know why you won't see reporters, why you have no information for anybody. Because your sister was a doxy, and you—" "My sister was a what?" "D, O, X, Y, doxy. I happen to like that better than concubine or paramour or mistress. I don't—" I stopped because I had to, to protect my face.1966, Rex Stout, Death of a Doxy, ch. 5
- So then, of course, he paid her in kind...the place is full of his doxies, open a closet at Allington and some wench falls out of it.2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate, published 2010, page 328:
- Derived terms
- arch doxy