Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A woman who wails or mourns: used in the quotation with reference to professional mourners.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete A woman who wails.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun rare A
female professional mourner
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From wailer + -ess
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Examples
-
(Jer.xxi. 13); ‘waileress’ (Jer.ix. 17); ‘cheseress’ (= electrix, Wisd.viii. 4); ‘singeress’, ‘breakeress’, ‘waiteress’, this last indeed having recently come up again.
English Past and Present Richard Chenevix Trench 1846
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‘wailer’, beside ‘waileress’, had ‘wailster’ (Jer.ix. 17); ‘dweller’
English Past and Present Richard Chenevix Trench 1846
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