Word.ws English Dictionary

put on the red light

put on the red light verb: to advertise oneself as a prostitute.

Verb

put on the red light (third-person singular simple present puts on the red light, present participle putting on the red light, simple past and past participle put on the red light)

  1. (idiomatic) To advertise oneself as a prostitute.
    • Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Those days are over / You don't have to sell your body to the night1978, “Roxanne”, performed by The Police

Forms of put on the red light

third-person singular presentputs on the red light
present participleputting on the red light
past participleput on the red light
pastput on the red light

Origin of put on the red light

Refers to the fact that a red light is traditionally placed in the windows of sex-related businesses; compare red-light district.

Questions about put on the red light

What does put on the red light mean?
Put on the red light means to advertise oneself as a prostitute.
What part of speech is put on the red light?
Put on the red light is a verb.
What is the past tense of put on the red light?
The past tense of put on the red light is put on the red light.

Words near put on the red light in the dictionary

  1. put on the dog
  2. put on the kibosh
  3. put on the long finger
  4. put on the map
  5. put on the pounds
  6. put on the red light
  7. put on the ritz
  8. put on the spot
  9. put on weight
  10. put one across
  11. put one foot in front of the other

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put on the red light (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-put on the red light.ogg.

Cite this entry: “put on the red light.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_on_the_red_light. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.