afflictress

English

Etymology

From afflicter +‎ -ess.

Noun

afflictress (plural afflictresses)

1. (rare) A female afflicter.
   • 1886, James Hain Friswell, The Gentle Life: Essays in Aid of the Formation of Character:

     Let us count our afflictresses: we have Eve, Delilah, Pandora, Dejanira, Helen, the daughters of Pandarus, Messalina, the Empress of Russia, and several queens and empresses whom we need not mention.

   • 1998, Bulletin of the Asia Institute - Volume 10, page 255:

     Sisinnios was also a Christian name from the end of the first century onwards, frequent for martyrs of the 4th cent., especially under Diocletian, to whose period was attributed St. Sisinnios of Antioch, the magical opponent of the demonic afflictress of childbirth.

   • 2014, Garnik Asatrian, Victoria Arakelova, “On the South Caspian Contact Zone: Some Talishi Folk Beliefs”, in Iran and the Caucasus, volume 18, number 2:

     Another afflictress of childbirth in the Talishi beliefs is Shasha (šaša).

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