vbl. sb. [f. WHORE v. + -ING1.] The action of WHORE v.; fornication; also fig.: spec. in biblical use, applied to idolatry, as an act of unfaithfulness to the true God (cf. WHOREDOM 2): chiefly in phr. to go a whoring.
1535. Coverdale, Exod. xxxiv. 15. Whan they go a whoringe after their goddes. Ibid., Ps. cv[i]. 38. Thus were they stayned with their owne workes, and wente a whoringe with their owne invencions.
1604. Shaks., Oth., V. i. 116. This is the fruits of whoring.
1619. in Foster, Engl. Factories India (1906), 153. Their private whorings, drunkennesse and such like ryotts.
a. 1638. Mede, Wks. (1672), 582. All the Visions contemporating with Babylon’s times must be expounded of such things only as belong to the times of Babylon’s whoring.
1668. South, Serm., Luke xxi. 15, Wks. 1727, V. 416. When with Whoring, and Gaming, and Revelling, they have disabled themselves from paying their Butchers.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 60, ¶ 2. The common Diversions of Men of Fashion; that is to say, in Whoring, Drinking, and Gaming.
1855. [J. D. Burn], Autobiogr. Beggar Boy (1859), 73. The whole of this man’s conduct tended to … fighting, whoring, and roguery!
So Whoring ppl. a.
1677. W. Hughes, Man of Sin, II. x. 185. That either we must have a Married or a Whoring Clergy.
