frogess

English

Alternative forms

• froggess

Etymology

From frog +‎ -ess.

Noun

frogess (plural frogesses)

1. A female frog (amphibian).
   • 1848, Fitch W[aterman] Taylor, “The Bull-frogs’ Serenade”, in A Voyage Round the World, and Visits to Various Foreign Countries, in the United States Frigate Columbia; […], 9th edition, volume I, New Haven, Conn.: […] H. Mansfield; New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Co., […], pages 191–192:

     The night was warm, the pool was still, / No sound was heard from lake or hill, / Save where, upon a log decayed, / A bull-frog croaked his serenade: / Wake, frogess of my love, awake, / And listen to my song; / The heron roosts far from the lake, / The pickerel his rest doth take / The water-weeds among. // The sun has put his fire out, / The daylight’s hardly seen, / No enemy is round about; / Then frogess poke thy lovely snout / Above the waters green.

   • 1860 October, “The Theology of Common Things”, in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume XXVII, Edinburgh: Sutherland & Knox; London: Partridge & Co., page 526, column 1:

     These superstitions and traditions were all odd and strange beliefs, which mingled the materialistic and the spiritual most incongruously; but they were not so degrading, and they were not so far from truth as the “enlightened” ideas respecting our origin, circulated in costly volumes during recent years, by authors whose Adam and Eve were frogs, formed from slime by the action of the sun, with a dash of electricity, and in which, from gratitude for their descent, their progeny for centuries, millenniums, or millionenniums wallowed. At last a frog or frogess—or both may have been required—became a little better than other animals of the same origin, and they pushed out of the slime, and became rats, or squirrels, or something else, while others degenerated at the same time into eels, and progressed upwards to serpents after their first decadence.

   • 1871 December 27, “A Frog’s Story”, in C[harles] H[enry] Ross, editor, Judy, or the London Serio-Comic Journal, volume X, London: […] the Proprietor […], published 1872, page 81, column 2:

     I was floating and gambolling, and showing off my varied talents for the edification of a couple of lovely young frogesses, and I somehow got separated from the rest of my mates, and found myself right over the other side of the pond. […] I was doing my celebrated double summersault, and it occupied all my attention, so that for a moment I lost sight of the ladies. When I got my breath again they were gone. / I was amazed! Had they basely deserted me? Frogesses are as wicked flirts as women, sometimes.

   • 1882 September 14, Nathan E. Ballou, “Do Frogs Eat Snakes?”, in William C. Harris, editor, The American Angler, a Weekly Journal of Angling--Brook, River, Lake and Sea--Fish Culture, volume II, number 13, New York, N.Y.: […] The Anglers’ Publishing Company, […], published 23 September 1882, section “Notes and Queries”, page 200, column 1:

     In the issue of September 9th of The Angler, a paragraphist asks the question: Do frogs eat fish? The interrogatory at the head of this item may be considered by frog-eaters a very unsavory question to propound, for the reason that the frog, and frogess, Rana-pipiens and Rana-palustris, have been considered as very chaste in their eating habits; so select, indeed, as to eschew any and everything without the pale of respectability.

   • 1884, Augusta Webster, chapter XIII, in Daffodil and the Croäxaxicans: A Romance of History, London: Macmillan and Co., page 164:

     Daffodil intervened. “Is His Majesty always so—so playful?” / “He has been all his life much the same as now,” replied the Queen, “and so was his father, and they say his grandfather wasn’t very much different. There seems to be something that keeps the frogs of this Royal family of Grachidichika young—too young almost. It doesn’t seem to tell so much on the frogesses—what there have been of them in the last generations. It’s the dulness of the country, I believe.”

   • 1885 September 8, “Uncle Will”, “Our Post-Office Box”, in Harper’s Young People: An Illustrated Weekly, volume VI, number 306, New York, N.Y.: […] Harper & Brothers, page 718, column 2:

     Every evening at sunset Morty establishes himself in a retired and romantic mud-hole near his mother’s house, and serenades a young lady frogess who lives on the other side of the swamp (their parents are cruel, and won’t let them come any nearer than this).

   • 1896 August 14, Walter B. Guild, “The Frog’s Party”, in The Poultney Journal, volume XXII, number 33, Poultney, Vt., page 6, column 6:

     I had just time to see that all the frogs and frogesses behind us had formed a procession, two by two, when suddenly from down by the river edge there came the sound of music.

   • 1954, Wallace Kirkland, Recollections of a Life Photographer, page 146:

     Then I got a leopard frog and a bunch of frog’s eggs. I photographed them together, the frogess with her arms around the gooey clutch of eggs.

   • 1975, Thomas M. Disch, The New Improved Sun: An Anthology of Utopian S-F, Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 97:

     Do not tell me about masculinity and femininity; do not tell me that enchanted frogs turn into princes, that frogesses under a spell turn into princesses.

   • 1986, Canadian Theatre Review, page 83:

     Dot: What if you're the frogess and you can't find the handsome prince to turn you into a princess? / Helen: Well, in a sense I accept that I'm a frogess. On the other hand, I choose to act like a princess. / Alyss: Hold it. I'm not a frogess.

   • 2004, Sampurna Chattarji, transl., Abol Tabol: The Nonsense World of Sukumar Ray, Puffin Books, translation of original by Sukumar Ray, →ISBN, page 116:

     Titmice and owls will come tonight— / The poor mice will die of fright, / Frogs and frogesses will shake with fear, / And burst into rashes from nose to ear, / Maddened moles will run amok / Snapping sniping their jaws will lock.

   • 2009, David Richardson, “Wickersham”, in Shamrocks on the Tanana: Richard Geoghegan’s Alaska, Snoqualmie, Wash.: Cheechako Books, →ISBN, pages 48–49:

     Richard accepted these remonstrances in good humor, though in one burst of fancy he penned and sent her a touching little yarn about an unhappy young frog “that lived all by himself in a dismal little pool.” He saw “such lots of other frogs & frogesses, that were so happy and seemed to enjoy themselves so much”—but he was so different from them that “it was no wonder why they didn’t want him to spoil their play.”

   • 2009, Francine Kaye, “The Ex Files”, in The Divorce Doctor, →ISBN, part two, “Recuperation”, section “The Ego Mind”, subsection “The Gremlin’s Voice – Sabotage and Alert”, subsubsection “The Saboteur Strategy”, pages 89–90:

     Of course you won’t be able to stay inside your home for the rest of your life and hide, but when you are ready to let someone else into your life, it’s more than likely that after kissing several frogs or frogesses, you’ll find someone else to share your life with.

2. (rare, offensive) A female frog (French person).
   • 1986, Genevière Edis, ““Le Français méprise la jeunesse””, in Merde Encore!: More of the Real French You Were Never Taught at School, New York, N.Y.: Fireside Books, published 1998, →ISBN, chapter X, “Allons enfants”, page 82:

     Do Frogs like children? I am not terribly convinced they do. Before I get pelted with tomatoes by indignant Frogesses, could I simply ask you to draw your own conclusion from the large number of abusive terms used to describe children? Our “brats” is nothing compared with the variety of French names that have the same meaning but are too often used instead of “kids.”

   • 1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford, part one, London: Hutchinson, →ISBN, page 37:

     — I go on. To Dover and then take ship for France. / — God help us, you are indeed up. That sounds like state business. / — War on the papists. / — For God’s sake leave at least the English papishes alone, they have suffered enough. There is enough trouble here with the frogs and frogesses. The little froglings would grow up into proper Kent citizens if they were permitted to speak our tongue.

   • 2007, Oliver Stanley, Hotel Victoire, Sussex, England: Book Guild Publishing, →ISBN, page 139:

     ‘What would it involve?’ / ‘Living off the fat of the land in my room at the château. Local wine with meals twice a day. Unlimited. Lunch and dine with the director, an old army chap called Bagnolet, who’s got an English wife, Lucy. And the students of course.’ / ‘But the work?’ / ‘Nothing to it. Conversation in English all day with frogesses from the very best families. It’s a finishing school for girls – and you’re not to touch them.’