trull

From Middle English trollen travel about, from Old French troller, treiller to hunt.

• IPA^(key): /tɹʌl/

trull (plural trulls)

1. A female prostitute or harlot.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 365:

     ‘Hark'ee, child,’ says she, ‘is not that very young gentleman now in bed with some nasty trull or other?’

   • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘Dray Wara Yow Dee’, Black and White, Folio Society 2004, vol. 1, p. 369:

     South of Delhi, Sahib, you know the saying—‘Rats are the men and trulls the women.’

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:

     There was bad blood between them at first, says Mr Vincent, and the lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks in the world and an old whoremaster that kept seven trulls in his house and I’ll meddle in his matters, says he.

   • 1936: Like the Phoenix by Anthony Bertram

     However, terrible as it may seem to the tall maiden sisters of J.P.'s in Queen Anne houses with walled vegetable gardens, this courtesan, strumpet, harlot, whore, punk, fille de joie, street-walker, this trollop, this trull, this baggage, this hussy, this drab, skit, rig, quean, mopsy, demirep, demimondaine, this wanton, this fornicatress, this doxy, this concubine, this frail sister, this poor Queenie--did actually solicit me, did actually say 'coming home to-night, dearie' and my soul was not blasted enough to call a policeman.

   • 2002: One Head Too Many by Peter Tonkin

     A trull for certain, then; but a trull reformed, long since come up in the world.