When we hear the word “pander,” we often think of it as a verb meaning “to please others.” However, its historical meanings also include “to sexually gratify” and “to pimp.” The evolution of the verb form dates back to the early seventeenth century when it was used to describe a “pimp.” This term was borrowed around 1450 from Pandero, the character who arranged a match for his cousin with a Trojan prince in a twelfth-century poem by Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio. Interestingly, Boccaccio drew inspiration from Pandaros, a character in Homer’s Iliad who had no association with prostitution. The name “Pandaros” is derived from the prefix pan-, meaning “all,” the root dero, meaning “to flay,” and the noun-forming suffix -os.
