Definition of "pander"

[…] if ever you prove false one, to another since I have taken such paine to bring you together let all pittifull goers betweene be cald to the worlds end after my name, call them all Panders, let all constant men be Troylusses all false woemen Cressids, and all brokers betweene panders

1609, Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act 3

It was not only the brilliant phalanx of virtuous dowagers, generals and academicians with whom he was most intimately associated that Swann so cynically compelled to serve him as panders.

1992, Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright, translating Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, Folio Society 2005, p. 190

Camillo was his helpe in this, his Pandar: There is a Plot against my Life, my Crowne; All's true that is mistrusted: that false Villaine, Whom I employ'd, was pre-emplot'd

c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene ii], page 282, column 1

Those wicked panders to avarice and ambition.

1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension

Two small Hindu boys were waiting for me outside—small for their years (about fourteen) but infinitely worldly-wise. Hindu boys are, first, panders, and second, remarkably skillful and pertinacious beggars.

1944 May, Gilbert E. Fuller Jr, “Chanute and Points West”, in The Atlantic‎

[...] both the Conservatives and Labour are guilty of pandering to the road lobby at the time of Beeching's The Reshaping of Britain's Railways report published in 1963.

2020 July 29, Howard Johnston, “Reversing Beeching: just how serious is the DfT?”, in Rail, page 30

Who knows what Brill really thought? But he pandered the rumor linking Spear to a whole string of dastardly deeds.

1980 April 19, Mitzel, “Barbre Murder Grand Jury: Puccini Outtake”, in Gay Community News, page 1