Word.ws English Dictionary

world's oldest profession

world's oldest profession noun: prostitution.

Noun

the world's oldest profession (plural not attested)

  1. (euphemistic, no plural) Prostitution.
    • Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world.1888, Rudyard Kipling, “On the City Wall”, in In Black and White
    • The company was extremely mixed. There were portly foreigners, opulent Jewesses, a sprinkling of the really smart, and several ladies belonging to the oldest profession in the world.1929, Agatha Christie, The Seven Dials Mystery

world's oldest profession meaning in Vietnamese

world's oldest profession in Vietnamese

euphemism for prostitution
gái làng chơi

Forms of world's oldest profession

alternative formoldest profession in the world
alternative formoldest profession

Origin of world's oldest profession

First appears c. 1888, coined by Rudyard Kipling as most ancient profession in the world. Alternative forms appeared in the early 1900s, present form popular by the 1930s. Similar terms with various senses (not necessarily prostitution) exist in other languages.

Questions about world's oldest profession

What does world's oldest profession mean?
World's oldest profession means prostitution.
What is world's oldest profession in Vietnamese?
World's oldest profession in Vietnamese is gái làng chơi. See World's oldest profession meaning in Vietnamese.
What part of speech is world's oldest profession?
World's oldest profession is a noun.

Words near world's oldest profession in the dictionary

  1. World's Fair plant
  2. world's fairs
  3. world's fastest man
  4. world's fastest woman
  5. world's greatest athlete
  6. world's oldest profession
  7. world's record
  8. world's records
  9. world's smallest violin
  10. world's soul
  11. world's tiniest violin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: world's oldest profession (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-world's oldest profession.wav.

Cite this entry: “world's oldest profession.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/world%27s_oldest_profession. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.