Lothario

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See also: lothario

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Named after Lothario, a character in the play The Fair Penitent,[1][2] a reference to a seducer of the same name in the metastory of the Quixote called The Impertinent Curious Man.[3]

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /loʊˈθɛəɹioʊ/
  • (file)

Noun[edit]

Lothario (plural Lotharios)

  1. A man whose chief interest is seducing, usually women.
    Synonyms: lady-killer, Casanova, Romeo; see also Thesaurus:promiscuous man, Thesaurus:libertine
    Coordinate term: Romeo
    • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Schools and Schoolmasters”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 437:
      High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though do what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of his bed; for alas! all fish bed in common.
    • 1919, Rudyard Kipling, “A Code of Morals”, in Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads:
      He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold, / As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the old; / But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby my ditty hangs) / That snowy-haired Lothario Lieutenant-General Bangs.
    • 2023 October 29, Zoe Williams, “‘The ironic, metrosexual lothario’: how Matthew Perry captured the spirit of the age”, in The Guardian[2], →ISSN:
      So much of the plot structure rested on Chandler being the second string: the maladroit loser to Joey’s lothario, the joker skating beneath Ross’s romantic gravity.

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Lothario”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ Nicholas Rowe (1703) The Fair Penitent[1]
  3. ^ Miguel de Cervantes (1605) “In which is related the novel of "The Ill-Advised Curiosity"”, in John Ormsby, transl., Don Quixote, published 1885

Further reading[edit]