auctioneeress

English

Etymology

From auctioneer +‎ -ess.

Noun

auctioneeress (plural auctioneeresses)

1. (nonstandard) A female auctioneer.
   • 1837, Thomas Ingoldsby, The Ingoldsby Legends; Or, Mirth and Marvels, volume I, Philadelphia: Willis P. Hazard, published 1856, page 57:

     I have little news to tell you, except that Mrs. ⸺, the auctioneeress, if there be such a word, is likely to die, and that the sorrowing widower, in posse, is said to have already made arrangements to take the beautiful (Oh! that I could add prudent) Miss Foote, as her successor.

   • 1871 February 26, The Tennessean, page 4:

     The square was, as usual of Saturdays, filled on yesterday with auctioneers and auctioneeresses, selling prize candies, horses and perfumes.

   • 1875 October 17, Arkansas Gazette, page 4:

     Mrs. Coy took the platform, and as an auctioneeress, with her glib tongue, ready wit and charming manners, […]

   • 1896 July 25, The Wasp, page 6, column 1:

     Tuesday afternoon Maxine Elliott of the Frawley Company appeared as an auctioneeress.

   • 1900 January 20, Windsor and Richmond Gazette, page 13, column 1:

     At Melbourne last week, Miss L. T. White received an auctioneer’s license. She is the first lady auctioneer in Australia. If some horrid man only starts the cry of “a mouse” when she mounts the ostrum, it will be case of “going, going—gone” with the fair auctioneeress.

   • 1902 June 11, Colorado College, The Tiger, volume IV, number 35, page 3, column 2:

     The Senior girls have been having an Auction of household goods, etc., at Ticknor Hall during the past week. Angie S. Kuhl, Auctioneeress.

   • 1904, Brother Jacques, translation of Frère Jacques by Charles Paul de Kock, 1822, page 16:

     The heroic and free-and-easy manner of Madame Volenville’s dancing created a sensation; a confused murmur ran through the salon and the young men left the card-table for the place where our auctioneeress was performing.

   • 1905, The Rosary Magazine, volume 27, page 290, column 1:

     One by one the articles were disposed of by the amateur auctioneeress, and Perry was alone with her thoughts.

   • 1907 March 2, The New York Times, page 9:

     AS THE AUCTIONEERESS Marie Dressier Says She’s a Business.

   • 1914 July 1, The Argus, page 20, column 3:

     Mr. FRED NIBLO / Has Kindly Volunteered to Conduct / A SALE by AUCTION / In perfect good faith, as an accessory after the act, of Fancy Articles, and Useful Goods Stolen, Borrowed, or Bought by the Society Belles of the Ladies’ Committee. He will be assisted by a bevy of / FASCINATING AUCTIONEERESSES, / Selected from the Leading Theatres, / “Cards to View on Application.”

   • 1918, the students of the State Normal College (Bowling Green, Ohio), The Beegee, “Beegee Jingles”, “How We Got Our Flag (Flora Mae Shepard, Ex. ’18.)”, page 139:

     And when the pile quite large had grown, / The auctioneeress rose, / And called for bids as from the pile / With tears some gift she chose, / For she could not help thinking / Of sacrifices great / Which she and all her friends had made / The flag fund to create.

   • 1918, American Shorthorn Breeder’s Association, The Shorthorn in America, page 14, column 3:

     Several of three occupations have little appeal for women—but I dare say that some day an indubitably clever auctioneeress will mark that statement as reactionary.

   • 1919, The Microcosm, volume ten, Boston, Massachusetts: Simmons College, page 186:

     Marion Fitch was the coy and persuasive Auctioneeress, who lured the dollars from the audience with the same ease and rapidity that a magician draws rabbits out of a silk hat.

   • 1919, Angela Brazil, The Head Girl at the Gables, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, published 1920, pages 124, 126:

     The amateur auctioneer—or rather auctioneeress—seized upon the first thing that came to hand, which happened to be one of Claire’s discarded dolls. […] “Time’s getting on, and we put up the shutters at five,” continued the loquacious auctioneeress.

   • 1920, The Sabbath Recorder, volume 88, page 377, column 1:

     The “auctioneeress” was a young lady of the community and she proved that a girl might sell pies as well as a man.

   • 1921 February 6, New-York Tribune, page 8:

     Winsome Pearl White, popular heroine of many a screen thriller, who was the auctioneeress at the Retail Millinery Association’s big show at the Astor last Wednesday.

   • [1923 June 1, The Ladies’ Mirror: The Fashionable Ladies’ Journal of New Zealand, volume I, number 12, page 5, columns 2–3:

     So am I, but I foresee trouble over her designation. Some people, in fact the majority, seem to hug the pedantry of insisting upon the feminine form of titles that up to present have been held only by men. This scribe thinks that no sex distinction is necessary in such matters. Shall this female auctioneer be called “auctioneeress,” in the manner that some maltreat the word “poet” by making it “poetess,” and “author” by changing it to “authoress”? Clumsy and the reverse of euphonious, don’t you think? Almost it would be better to speak and write of “she-poets” and “she-auctioneers”! Surely, where sex does not matter, such words as these could be left in their ordinary form, at least until more euphonious forms could be evolved.]

   • 1956 July 24, Long Beach Independent, page 12:

     The mooth, sharp auctioneer was really an auctioneeress, Mrs. Elmer Lenz, who swung a mean gavel during the proceedings.

   • 1957, Pearl Bates, Mary Patti, editors, The Tontoquonian, class of 1957 (Saugus High School):

     Joanne Emma is now an auctioneeress selling the furniture from the old Saugus High School which has just recently been torn down.

   • 1962, Harbor High School, Mariner, page 132:

     Marcia Lintala is a successful auctioneeress at the Dorset Auction Barn.

   • 1968, The American Philatelist, volume 82, page 613, column 1:

     The auctioneeress switched to English.

   • [1979 November 18, Sedalia Democrat, page 10:

     She says men sometimes size her up when she arrives, and she’s been asked whether she wants to be called an auctioneer or an “auctioneeress.”]

   • [1993, J. Cheryl Exum, Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives, →ISBN:

     Equally unnecessary is marking the presence of women by the suffix ‘ess’, which not only sounds like a diminutive (the ‘little woman’) but also gives the impression that women in these positions are anomalies that need to be singled out: sculptress, poetess, prophetess, priestess, even Ruth the Moabitess. And if one should ever find it necessary to use the plural, the result is quite a mouthful: poetesses, prophetesses, Moabitesses, etc. I have heard on the BBC in the last year the forms ‘auctioneeress’, ‘manageress’, and even ‘lecturess’. Scholaresses beware.]

   • 1994, Tibor Fischer, The Thought Gang, Vintage, published 1999, →ISBN, pages 1, 2:

     Present holder: auctioneeress. […] The auctioneeress nods, slightly oddly. […] I, on the other hand, interpret it as the auctioneeress biting the inside of her mouth to stop herself laughing, because he is, in addition to being a lugal, a clown, a multi-storey car park filled with jalopies of laughability, soooooo preposterous, a baboon of prodigious risibility; […] The auctioneeress looks up to the sky as if pondering its cruelty, but more likely to give her teeth the chance to hang on to her cheeks.

   • 1996 August 3, Dave Arcuri, “Re: Perilous Realm Stock Mud”, in rec.games.mud.admin (Usenet), message-ID <slrn507sf5.9c.tfff@shark.co.iup.edu>:

     I never said the auctioneeress was an attempt to code roleplaying, it was an attempt to make a feature of the MUD more realistic.

   • 1997, Tibor Fischer, The Collector Collector, Metropolitan Books, →ISBN, pages 3, 11, 115, 139, 198, 219:

     She is probably assigning me a price (she works for the auctioneeress, so she must know how much money it takes to stop a bowl with my features). […] Nikki tries to see the auctioneeress, but she is out. […] Rosa has told him that I’ve been given back to the custody of the auctioneeress, and she, conveniently, as Rosa knows, is away on holiday for two weeks in an unobtainable style. Which is doubly convenient for Rosa, since the auctioneeress, too, has been asking for me. […] She planned to stay for a few weeks, but she gets a call from the auctioneeress telling her about a pair of earrings. […] The auctioneeress arrives, and I am packed away. […] We stop outside as the auctioneeress delves into her purse for her car keys. The auctioneeress can’t hear it, but I can perceive the phone ringing in Rosa’s flat.

   • 1997 January 16, Catsswing, “Re: MADONNA STAGE WORN COAT AND PANTS FOR SALE!”, in alt.fan.madonna (Usenet), message-ID <19970116022400.VAA28209@ladder01.news.aol.com>:

     I was at an auction in N.Y. at Christies when a fancy bikini type bottom of Madonna's was auctioned off for a pretty darn nice piece of change. After a fellow bought them the staid auctioneeress said, "I'm not going to ask what you plan to do with them sir."

   • 1999 June 2, Bedhead, “Re: Found”, in alt.support.stop-smoking (Usenet), message-ID <4Hl53.111$zX5.8336@typ42b.nn.bcandid.com>:

     Barbara (Bedhead) / AS3 Auctioneeress

   • 1999 June 28, P Fashion1, “Re: Ebay Auction”, in alt.fashion (Usenet), message-ID <19990628073150.12852.00006281@ng-cb1.aol.com>:

     Patsy / (whose signature should read "big-time ebay auctioneeress", but doesn't)

   • [2000, Future: The Aventis Magazine, page 53:

     And if one accepts “avocate,” what about “commissaire-priseuse” (auctioneeress)?]

   • 2005 August 25, “Up and Down the Wine Roads: Land trust fund-raiser”, in The Weekly Calistogan:

     The loudest applause of the auction came when "auctioneeress" Urusla^[sic] Hermacinski asked the crowd who would like to donate $100 to the Land Trust and receive nothing but satisfaction of supporting a wonderful cause.

   • 2008, Richard Wendorf, The Literature of Collecting & Other Essays, →ISBN, page 40:

     And the least successful, for he is frustrated in his pursuit by the auctioneeress, by Rosa, the conservator to whom she entrusts the vase, by Nikki, the promiscuous kleptomaniac who moves in with Rosa, by a raucous assortment of dealers, thieves, and fences — and not least by the ingenious vase itself, which, once locked within a safe, “deformed and dedesigned in the dark, emerging as the dullest Wedgwood I could imagine” (16).

   • 2010 January 14, Alex W., “Re: Sex and "Spirituality"”, in alt.atheism (Usenet), message-ID <129v6o7pf3hq5$.d2i9hd81spxo$.dlg@40tude.net>:

     Seriously: when I go to watch fairs or auctions, the only ladies present are auctioneeresses or bored company performing a labour of love for their bloke.

   • 2015, Jamie Brickhouse, Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir, New York: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, page 263:

     The eagle-eyed auctioneeress, who looked more like a Realtor with her bubble of blond hair and reading glasses, had no problem spotting all serious bids. […] Over the top of her reading glasses the auctioneeress glanced at me in subtle recognition of my bid.