Noun

(en noun)

The act of prosecuting a scheme or endeavor.

:

(lb) The institution of legal proceedings (particularly criminal) against a person.

*

*:Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.

(lb) The prosecuting party.

*{{quote-news, date=21 August 2012, first=Ed, last=Pilkington, newspaper=The Guardian

, title= Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die? , passage=The prosecution case was that the men forced the sisters to strip, threw their clothes over the bridge, then raped them and participated in forcing them to jump into the river to their deaths. As he walked off the bridge, Clemons was alleged to have said: "We threw them off. Let's go."}}

Noun

(-)

Engaging in sexual activity with another person in exchange for compensation, such as money or other valuable goods.

* {{quote-web

, date = 2013-07-29 , author =David Ingram (reporting for Reuters), Howard Goller & Bill Trott (editing for Reuters) , title = FBI arrests 150 in three days in sex-trafficking sweep , site = news.yahoo.com , url = http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-says-arrested-150-three-days-child-prostitution-154521080.html , accessdate = 2013-07-29 }}

The FBI typically does not investigate adult prostitution', leaving it as a state and local matter, but in recent years it has made child ' prostitution a priority in a program the FBI calls Operation Cross Country. The program includes highway billboards asking people to call the FBI with tips.

Her addiction brought her to the point that prostitution was the only means she had to survive.

(by extension) Debasement for unworthy profit or motives.

The television advertising job was a prostitution of the talents of one of the great writers of the century.