Jump to content

songstress

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

From songster +‎ -ess. Compare West Frisian sjongeres (“songstress”), Dutch zangeres (“songstress”).

Pronunciation

[edit]

Noun

[edit]

songstress (plural songstresses)

  1. A female singer.
    • 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:
      The songstress paused, and was answered by one or two deep and hollow groans, that seemed to proceed from the very agony of the mortal strife.
    • 1834, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter II, in The Last Days of Pompeii. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […]; successor to Henry Colburn, →OCLC:
      At every pause in the music she gracefully waved her flower-basket round, inviting the loiterers to buy; and many a sesterce was showered into the basket, either in compliment to the music or in compassion to the songstress—for she was blind.
    • 1877, Charles Reade, A Woman-Hater‎[1]:
      Were I to reproduce the nine other paragraphs, it would be a very curious, instructive, and tedious specimen of literature; and, who knows? I might corrupt some immaculate soul, inspire some actor or actress, singer or songstress, with an itch for public self-laudation, a foible from which they are all at present so free. Witness the Era, the Hornet, and Figaro.
    • 2025 June 19, Glenn Kenny, “‘Shanghai Blues’ Review: Slapstick Fun in a 1984 Tsui Hark Picture”, in The New York Times‎[2], →ISSN:
      Sally Yeh is the winsome and amiable character known as Stool, who’s living next door to the ambitious and tetchy songstress Shu-Shu, who’s both commanding and funny as portrayed by Sylvia Chang.
  2. A female songbird.

Synonyms

[edit]
[edit]

Translations

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=songstress&oldid=85978411"