Lothario is a word dating back to the turn of the eighteenth century. Though still in use today, most people are unaware that Lothario is actually a proper name. We will look at the meaning of Lothario, where the term came from and some examples of its use in sentences.
A Lothario is a man who is unconscionable in his relations with women, a man who seduces women and leaves them, a man who uses women for his own selfish desires. The term Lothario comes from a literary figure popular at the beginning of the 1700s, the main character of the play The Fair Penitent, written by Nicholas Rowe. In the play, Lothario seduces and then abandons the main female character, who ultimately commits suicide. Lothario is an eponym, which is a word that is coined from a person’s name. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Lothario is properly rendered with an initial capital letter, as it is a proper name. However, as fewer and fewer people are aware of the origin of the term, it is becoming more common to see it rendered in all lowercase letters, as in lothario.
Examples
Even on songs where he hints at his lothario status, Songz promises he’s a better man than his behavior makes him seem, as heard on Playboy: “Don’t know why I’m still kissing girls that I don’t love, still stumbling out of these clubs, still I’m just so hard to trust, don’t know why I’m still a playboy.” (USA Today)
There are hints SoMo wants to be more than a Lothario on “The Answers” as he earnestly sings on the title track and invests extra heart in the piano-based apology “Just a Man.” (The Knoxville News Sentinel)