English edit

  A user has added this entry to requests for verification(+)
If it cannot be verified that this term meets our attestation criteria, it will be deleted. Feel free to edit this entry as normal, but do not remove {{rfv}} until the request has been resolved.

Etymology edit

contender +‎ -ess

Noun edit

contendress (plural contendresses)

  1. (nonce word, obsolete) A female contender.
    • 1858, Chapman, “A Hymn to Venus”, in Homer's Batrachomyomachia, Hymns and Epigrams, page 82:
      The all-of-gold-made laughter-loving Dame
      Left odorous Cyprus, and for Troy became
      A swift contendress, her pass cutting all
      Along the clouds, and made her instant fall
      On fountful Ida, that her mother-breasts
      Gives to the preyful brood of savage beasts.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “contendress”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)