We're marking International Women's Day with a look at a few labels applied to women. (来源：专业英语学习网站 http://www.EnglishCN.com)

We begin with little woman, an informal way to say "wife." Another informal term for wife is old lady (but be careful: old lady is also used to mean "mother" or "girlfriend"). As if "old" ladies and "little" women aren't strange enough, our lexicon is also home to the phrase strange woman. A strange woman is a prostitute; that phrase has its origin in the Biblical book of Proverbs, which cautions "For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb and her mouth is smoother than oil." The "strange woman" also, according to Proverbs, "flattereth with her words."

Strange woman keeps company with the scarlet woman, who, in Revelations and the Book of Isaiah, is found either garbed in scarlet or sitting upon scarlet beasts.

Scarlet and strange women are also known as women of the street (or the more euphemistic, not mention broader, women of the town). But we'll move on from those terms to close with an acknowledgment of a relatively recent woman-coinage: new woman. New woman came into being in the late 19th century, when it was applied to "a woman actively resisting traditional controls and seeking to fill a complete role in the world." That term (and the movement associated with it) faded from the forefront around the time of the Great War, but we wouldn't be surprised to see it circle 'round again someday.