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wanton's

Diction
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Showing sexual looseness or immoral behavior, in older literary usage.

Detailed Definition
In older poetry, “wanton” often means sexually reckless, unchaste, or morally unrestrained. The phrase “the wanton's hollow voice” marks the speaker as a prostitute or sexually exploited woman, using a strongly judgmental literary term.
Example
Example in poetry:
Blake, “The Chimney Sweeper”: “Who with the wanton’s hollow voice / Address’d the passers by,” uses wanton for sexually unrestrained or morally reckless; “wanton” in older poetry can mean luxuriant, playful, or uncontrolled, as in “wanton winds”; “Her wanton laughter troubled the sober hall” carries the word’s archaic suggestion of licentiousness; Modern readers should note that the term is often judgmental and gendered in historical contexts
Additional Notes
“Wanton” is an older, morally loaded literary word whose meaning is not as immediate as everyday vocabulary.; Found in the poem, The Complaints of the Poor by Robert Southey
Also Known As
libertine's lewd one's promiscuous soul
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