kept woman

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English

Etymology

From kept +‎ woman.

Noun

kept woman (plural kept women)

  1. A woman who is supported financially by a lover (usually a married man).
    Synonym: sugar baby
    Coordinate term: kept man
    • 1912, David Graham Phillips, chapter 6, in The Price She Paid:
      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 August 8, “Cinema: The New Pictures”, in 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.

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