procuratress

English

Etymology

From procurator +‎ -ess.

Noun

procuratress (plural procuratresses)

1. A female procurator.
   • 1662, “To the Reader”, in The Life and Death of M^rs. Mary Frith. Commonly Called Mal Cutpurse. Exactly Collected and Now Published for the Delight and Recreation of All Merry Disposed Persons., London: […] W. Gilbertson; quoted in Janet Todd and Elizabeth Spearing, editors, Counterfeit Ladies: The Life and Death of Mary Frith; The Case of Mary Carleton, 1994:

     So much may suffice for her person; there is something due to be said of her Practise, and to this part I must invite none but Mercuriallists and the Procuratresses of the Colledge of Venus, who have long desired and expected the Works and Memorialls of this Virago, as deserving a place in the Rationale and Account of Time, as well as Oliver, but farre beyond Prince Crispine and his Lady, and the rest of that Leud Rout, and band of Knight Errantry.

   • 1663, Meditations Collected and Ordered for the Vse of the English Colledge of Lisbo by the Svperiovrs of the Same Colledge, Doway: By Baltazar Bellere, page 155:

     Consider fourthly, how here is verified the saying of the Psalme: Suscopimus Deus misericordiam tuam in medio templi tui: vve haue receiued thy mereie, ô God, in the middes of thy temple: for God the Father by the Priest, his publike Minister deliuered vs againe his onely Sonne from of the Altar of the Temple; vvhere the Virgin Mother as our procuratresse receiued him in our name before vvitnesses old Simeon, Ioseph, and the holy vvidow Anna;

   • 1674, Catholic Record Society Publications: Records Series, published 1922, page 42:

     The first Grate Sister S^r Constantia Massy who dyd in y^e Oct^r following, & was by R^d Father Crosse’s orders succeeded in office by Victoria Fortescue. first Ms of y^e schoole S^r Mary Catharine, Whence it is to be observed y^t in this Election were y^e offices of Grate Sister & Procuratresses instituted.

   • 1756, James Elphinston, The Analysis of the French and English Languages: With Their Roots and Idioms, London, page lxxxviii:

     procuratrice procuratreſs or pr.’s lady

   • 1820, James Hogg, “Welldean Hall”, in Winter Evening Tales, Collected Among the Cottagers in the South of Scotland, volume II, New York, N.Y.: […] Kirk and Mercein, Wiley and Halsted, W. B. Gilley, and Haly and Thomas. C.S. Van Winkle, […], page 206:

     The wily procuratress, on several pretences, declined answering the question;

   • 1858 April, “The French Annuals”, in Museum of Foreign Literature and Science, number 70, page 651:

     A carriage is overturned in a stony road, near the little town of Gondrecourt. It must be set to rights; but there is much to do, and few to do it, and consequently the delay will be long. Besides, there is no accommodation in the place; the judge, the curate, the bailiff and bailiff-ess, the procuratress-fiscal, and in fact all the best company, being in the country.

   • 1882 February 15, “Fell from the Roof. A Slight Fire at the Visitation Convent. Dick Sullivan, a Fireman, Falls Sixty Feet—He May Recover.”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, volume XXX, number 223, St. Louis, Mo., page 1:

     Sister Mary Xavier, Procuratress of the Convent, thinks the roof took fire from a spark from one of the neighboring chimneys.

   • 1901 May 7, “Purity Lecture”, in Muscatine Weekly News Tribune‎^[1]:

     She organized and managed the first mission at Castle Garden for the benefit of foreign women who land there annually by thousands to be decoyed by procurators and procuratress to ruin.

   • 1937 (published), Report and Transactions - The Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, page 448:

     Afterwards, all the nuns except Isabella having gone back and made a Chapter, empowered their three Procuratresses above named to go and inform the sd Isabella of her election and ask for her consent.

   • 1970 (published), Analecta Cartusiana, page 151:

     Of the Procuratresses. Two Sisters shall be appointed to take care of the store room. They must obtain from the other Sisters in office whatever the Community is likely to need, such as meat, fish, lard, eggs and such like.

   • 1950 December 14, “3 Governors of St. Mary’s Reappointed: Norman Darmstatter Remains Secretary—Staff Changes”, in The Herald-News, Passaic-Clifton, N.J., page 18:

     In her stead came the assisting mother, Sister Ellen Marie, and the procuratress of the order, Sister Frances Elise, both of Convent.

   • 2002 May 31, Kai Maristed, “Case of the Cavalier ‘Count’ and the Scorned Woman; Book Review: The Count and the Confession: A True Mystery by John Taylor, Random House, 366 pages, $24.95”, in Los Angeles Times, page E3:

     If Burde often rubbed men the other way—“impatient and unrealistic … suspicious, tightfisted, and easily angered,” according to his own publisher, he could charm women, from his housekeeper-cum-procuratress to the daughters of his girlfriends.

Synonyms

• procuratrix