Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A female lover; a mistress.
  • noun A woman prostitute.
  • noun A woman who is regarded as sexually promiscuous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A mistress; a sweetheart; generally, in a bad sense, a paramour.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A loose wench; a disreputable sweetheart.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun colloquial A defined opinion.
  • noun archaic A sweetheart; a prostitute or a mistress.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a woman who cohabits with an important man

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps from obsolete Dutch docke, doll.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From -doxy in orthodoxy, heterodoxy etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Perhaps from Middle Dutch *doketje, diminutive of docke ("a doll"). Cognate with Low German dokke ("doll"), Eastern Frisian dok, dokke ("a doll"), Swedish docka ("doll, puppet").

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Examples

  • "Orthodoxy, my lord, is _my doxy_, and heterodoxy is _another man's_ doxy."

    The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 6 George Gordon Byron Byron 1806

  • Thus I perceived that every cock of the game used to call his doxy his hatchet; for with that same tool

    Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 4 Fran��ois Rabelais 1518

  • Gervase preferred a more refined kind of doxy, but he hadn't had a woman in weeks and this one was clearly available and willing.

    Dearly Beloved Putney, Mary Jo 1990

  • Now I have a 'doxy' (as Warburton called it), that there is no exercise of the mind so little profitable to the mind as the study of languages.

    The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) 1907

  • Now I have a 'doxy' (as Warburton called it), that there is no exercise of the mind so little profitable to the mind as the study of languages.

    The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Kenyon, Frederic G 1898

  • Of course, we did not understand one-half of it, and I remember that we tried in vain to get an explanation of the frequently recurring word "doxy"; but we laughed till we cried at what we did understand.

    Recollections of My Childhood and Youth Georg Morris Cohen Brandes 1884

  • A prelate of the present day has discovered, it seems, a _third_ kind of doxy, which has not greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect that which Bentham calls "Church-of-Englandism."

    The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 6 George Gordon Byron Byron 1806

  • The dictionary defines "doxy" as a lover or mistress, so it's not surprising that the new

    The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) Steven Sande 2010

  • 'doxy', a couple of peasants drinking together, and Jan (or, in diminutive form, Jasiek), a youth who has just escaped from a prison to which he had been sentenced for an attack, under great provocation, on

    Selected Polish Tales Else C. M. Benecke

  • You know, like the ones you and my brothers bestow willy-nilly on every taproom maid, doxy, and opera dancer in your acquaintance.

    How to Woo a Reluctant Lady Deborah Gonzales 2011

Comments

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  • Like many great words, brought to my attention through the fine writing of Mr. Whedon. "I'll not be anyone's doxy," insists Saffron, in the Firefly episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds".

    January 23, 2007

  • Upstairs bounded the psychologist,

    rowed with his doxy, rushed down, said 'damn, DAMN!'...

    - Peter Reading, Ménage à Trois, from The Prison Cell & Barrel Mystery, 1976

    June 23, 2008

  • I, too, learned this word from Firefly. I'm not sure about WordNet's definition, though; I always assumed it just meant prostitute.

    July 13, 2008

  • I came across the word first in Heinlein's book Friday.

    July 13, 2008

  • "Doxy training" I think the term was. Of course I had to figure that out.

    July 13, 2008

  • Just had to say...Firefly rocks. Watch it, those of you who haven't done so already!

    July 13, 2008

  • Almost all of the online dictionaries give the 'mistress'-definition for this word; suggested synonyms include concubine, courtesan, odalisque, paramour, chippy, floozy, girl friend, grisette, inamorata,

    kept mistress, kept woman, lover, mistress, nymph, nymphet, paramour, playmate, tart, unofficial wife, wanton

    .

    Yet the word heterodoxy suggests there may be more to it than that. And, sure enough, dictionary.com leads with this definition:

    noun, plural dox·ies.

    1. opinion; doctrine.

    2. religious views.

    July 13, 2008

  • It's in Shakespeare. That's where I found it first, I think. Either that or just in the script for the Renaissance Faire I worked at.

    July 13, 2008

  • The antibiotic doxycycline is reasonably common. Could it be made from ... you know?

    July 13, 2008

  • Oh Ms Rowling, you're a wacky one.

    October 2, 2008