drabbing

Definitions

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  • noun The practice of associating with strumpets, or drabs.

Examples

  • And were I a man, as I am a woman, none other then my selfe should revenge her wrongs, making him a publike spectacle to all drabbing drunkards.

    The Decameron

  • Fine as this is, and delicately characteristic of one who had lived and been reared in the best society, and had been precipitated from it by dice and drabbing; yet still it strikes against my feelings as a note out of tune, and as not coalescing with that pastoral tint which gives such a charm to this act.

    Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher

  • And last of all, you will find in the rear a legend of godless lackies, palfreniers, and horse-boys, talking of nothing but dicing, drinking, and drabbing.”

    The Monastery

  • And so I stood between your lordship and that temptation, which might have been worse than the ordinary, or the playhouse either; since you wot well what Solomon, King of the Jews, sayeth of the strange woman — for, said I to mysell, we have taken to dicing already, and if we take to drabbing next, the Lord kens what we may land in!”

    The Fortunes of Nigel

Note

The origin of the word 'drabbing' is uncertain.