lady

   a prostitute

   As in the oldest joke:

    'Who was that lady I saw you with last night?' 'That was no lady. That was my wife.'

   A lady's college was a brothel where you might contract lady's fever, syphilis. Also as ladyboarder, lady of a certain description, easy virtue, no virtue, pleasure (who might also be a mistress), the night, the sisterhood, the stage, the streets, or just plain ladybird (who might also be a sweetheart):

    ... played for the lady-boarders and their friends. (Longstreet, 1956 — the women worked in a brothel)

   There are two kinds of person who supply the police with all the information they want; one, that of unmarried ladies of a certain description...(H. James, 1816)

   Talking of London, [Dr Johnson] observed... a man of pleasure [thinks of it as] the great emporium for ladies of easy virtue. (J. Boswell, 1791)

   So when he visited ladies of no virtue, it might be for purposes of fornication. (Masters, 1976)

    Here was my Lord Bouncker's lady of pleasure. (Pepys, 1665)

    The lady of the night studied Abel carefully. (Archer, 1979)

    I was looked up to as a kind of pattern to the ladies of the sisterhood. (Lyons, 1996 — the boast was made by a celebrated 18thcentury Dublin prostitute)

   We call them ladies of the stage. They prefer that. Most of them have been in front of the footlights at one time or another. (Innes, 1991)

    What, lamb! What, ladybird! God forbid. (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)