Lothario
See also: lothario
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Named after Lothario, a character in the play The Fair Penitent,[1][2] a reference to a seducer of the same name in the metastory of the Quixote called The Impertinent Curious Man.[3]
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]Lothario (plural Lotharios)
- A man whose chief interest is seducing, usually women.
- Synonyms: lady-killer, Casanova, Romeo; see also Thesaurus:promiscuous man, Thesaurus:libertine
- Coordinate term: Romeo
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Schools and Schoolmasters”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 437:
- High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though do what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of his bed; for alas! all fish bed in common.
- 1919, Rudyard Kipling, “A Code of Morals”, in Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads:
- He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold, / As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the old; / But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby my ditty hangs) / That snowy-haired Lothario Lieutenant-General Bangs.
- 2023 October 29, Zoe Williams, “‘The ironic, metrosexual lothario’: how Matthew Perry captured the spirit of the age”, in The Guardian[2], →ISSN:
- So much of the plot structure rested on Chandler being the second string: the maladroit loser to Joey’s lothario, the joker skating beneath Ross’s romantic gravity.
Translations
[edit]seducer
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References
[edit]- ^ “Lothario”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- ^ Nicholas Rowe (1703) The Fair Penitent[1]
- ^ Miguel de Cervantes (1605) “In which is related the novel of "The Ill-Advised Curiosity"”, in John Ormsby, transl., Don Quixote, published 1885
