Gigolo
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A man who has a sexual relationship with a woman from whom he receives payment; a prostitute.
- 2 a man who has sex with and is supported by a woman wordnet
- 3 A hired escort or dancing partner for a woman.
"I'm just a gigolo / And everywhere I go / People know the part I'm playin' / Paid for every dance / Sellin' each romance / Ooh, what they're sayin'"
Example
More examples"Rudolph Valentino worked as a dancer and a gigolo before becoming a movie star."
Etymology
First attested in English in 1922. From French gigolo (“young lover kept by an older woman”), first attested in that sense in 1904 (attested since 1850 in the sense “Amant de cœur, compagnon d'une gigolette", and since 1894 in the sense “elegant young man whose means of livelihood are dubious”), a back-formation from gigolette (“promiscuous dancing girl, girl available for hire as a dancing partner”), attested since 1850, from giguer (“to dance”), from gigue (“fiddle; type of dance; jig”). More at jig.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.