auditress
English edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
auditress (plural auditresses)
- (dated) A female hearer.
- 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 48-51:
- Yet went she not, as not with such discourse / Delighted or not capable her ear / Of what was night: such pleasure she reserved, / Adam relating, she sole auditress
- 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XIV, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 253:
- I have forbidden Adèle to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting with repletion; have the goodness to serve her as auditress and interlocutrice: