From Chaucer’s character Pandare (in Troilus and Criseyde), from Italian Pandaro (found in Boccaccio), from Latin Pandarus, from Ancient Greek Πάνδαρος (Pándaros). (See also Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.)
Meanings
(obsolete) A person who furthers the illicit love affairs of others; a pimp or procurer, especially when male.
From my exceſſe of moyſture, vvith ſuch coſt, / And can you yeeld no other retribution, / But to deuoure your maker, pandar, ſponge, / Impoyſner, all grovvne barren? c. 1607–1621 (date written), [Francis Beaumont; John Fletcher; Philip Massinger], The Tragedy of Thierry King of France, and His Brother Theodoret. […], London: […] [Nicholas Okes] for Thomas Walkley, […], published 1621, →OCLC, Act II, scene i, signature D2, recto:
From Chaucer’s character Pandare (in Troilus and Criseyde), from Italian Pandaro (found in Boccaccio), from Latin Pandarus, from Ancient Greek Πάνδαρος (Pándaros). (See also Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.)
Meanings
To pander (assist in the gratification of).
That degenerate aſſembly even pandared to the libidinous epicuriſm of this many-wived tyrant; and outraged, at his command, the rights of decorum, of juſtice, and of nature. 1795, Paul Dunvan, Ancient and Modern History of Lewes and Brighthelmston, page 397:
[…]not to be confounded by all the efforts of interested writers, who would abuse the valuable immunities of the press to the wretched purposes of venal detraction, and a lucrative pandaring to the morbid tastes of the public. 1827, Law of Libel—State of the Press: The Quarterly Review, volume 35, London, page 608:
He had, during many years, earned his daily bread by pandaring to the vicious taste of the pit, and by grossly flattering rich and noble patrons. 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume 2, published 1858, page 456: