a sinful woman described in Revelation 17, interpreted as a figure either of pagan Rome or of the Roman Catholic Church regarded as typifying vice overlaid with gaudy pageantry
2. old-fashioned, sometimes humorous
a sexually promiscuous woman
scarlet woman in American English
noun
1.
a sexually promiscuous woman, esp. a prostitute or a woman who commits adultery
2.
a symbol of pagan Rome or, opprobriously, of the church of Rome. Rev. 17:1–6
Word origin
[1810–20]This word is first recorded in the period 1810–20. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: dynamic, nihilism, realism, technique, voodoo