temple prostitute meaning: definition, quotations

temple prostitute

noun

Biblical, Lifestyle, Religion Historical A prostitute who is employed at a temple.

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."1895, Wilbur Fisk Crafts, Practical Christian Sociology, page 260:
In the Madras Presidency alone there are about 12,000 of these temple prostitutes.1909, Iwan Bloch, The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization, page 106:

1 more example

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.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:

Biblical, Lifestyle, Religion Historical An individual, usually a woman, engaged in sexual acts as part of religious worship.