different between courtier vs courtesan

English

Etymology

From Middle English courteour, from Anglo-Norman corteour, Old French cortoiier, from cort (“court”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k??ti?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k??t??/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?ko(?)?ti?/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?ko?t??/
• Rhymes: -??(?)ti?(?)

Noun

courtier (plural courtiers)

1. A person in attendance at a royal court.
   • c. 1600, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1,^[1]

     By the Lord, Horatio, this three years I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe.

2. A person who flatters in order to seek favour.
   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty, Bloomsbury, 2005, Chapter 12,

     People shouted cheerfully and flinched, but the Prime Minister didn't flinch, she fortified her voice with a firm diapason as if rising to the challenge of a rowdy Chamber. Around her her courtiers started like pheasants.

3. (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the Asian genus Sephisa.

Related terms

• court
• courtesan

Translations

Anagrams

• outcrier

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ku?.tje/

Noun

courtier m (plural courtiers, feminine courtière)

1. broker; stockbroker

Further reading

• “courtier” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French courtisane, from Italian cortigiana, feminine of cortigiano (“courtier”), from corte (“court”), itself from Latin cohors.

Pronunciation

• (UK, non-rhotic) IPA^(key): /k??t??zæn/, /?k??t?zæn/, /?k??t?z?n/
• (UK, rhotic) IPA^(key): /k??t??zæn/, /?k??t?zæn/, /?k??t?z?n/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?k??t?z?n/, /?k??t?zæn/, /?ko?t?z?n/, /?ko?t?zæn/

Noun

courtesan (plural courtesans)

1. (archaic) A woman of a royal or noble court.
2. (dated) The mistress of a royal or noble.
3. A female prostitute, especially one with high-status or wealthy clients.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:prostitute

   • 2014, Frances Wilson, The Courtesan's Revenge, Faber & Faber (?ISBN), page 10:

     In the notes he wrote for Nana, his novel about a courtesan in Second Empire Paris, Zola imagined ‘a whole society hurling itself’ at her body, ‘a pack of hounds after a bitch, who is not even on heat and makes fun of the hounds following her’. This might also describe the life of Harriette Wilson, whose unguarded pursuit by the leaders of the British aristocracy, the army, the government and opposition made her the most desired, and then the most dangerous, woman in Regency London.

Translations

Further reading

• courtesan on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

Anagrams

• acentrous, ancestour, auncestor, courantes, ctenosaur, nectarous, outrances