Let’s start with the word hussy. Originally this term was nothing but a shorter, sweeter version of the Old English husewif, which meant female head of household and is an early cognate of the modern word housewife. Around the seventeenth century, the word came to describe a rude “rustic” woman; then, it became a general insult for women of any kind, and eventually it narrowed to mean a lewd, brazen woman or prostitute. The word tart went down a similar road.
