Originally meant a male vagabond — Chaucer used it for men — one of the most startling gender reversals in English etymology.
A prostitute or promiscuous woman (archaic or literary).
From Old French 'herlot' or 'arlot,' meaning 'vagabond, beggar, rogue' — a word applied exclusively to males. When it entered English in the thirteenth century, 'harlot' meant a male vagabond, a rascal, or a low-born fellow. Chaucer called the Summoner a 'gentil harlot' — meaning a good-natured rascal, and male. The word
In Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' (c. 1390), the Summoner is called a 'gentil harlot and a kynde' — meaning a good-natured rogue, and emphatically male. William Langland's 'Piers Plowman' also uses 'harlot' for male vagabonds and jesters. The word's jump from 'male rogue' to 'female prostitute' happened over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the old male sense vanished so completely that most people are astonished to learn the word ever applied to men at all.