avengeress

English

Etymology

From avenger +‎ -ess. Compare Middle English vengeresses pl, vengerisse pl, vengerousses pl, veniouresse, veynjowresse, from Anglo-Norman vengeresse, vengerresse.

Noun

avengeress (plural avengeresses)

1. (rare) A female avenger.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     That cruell Queene avengeresse

   • 2004, Brian P. Levack, The Witchcraft Sourcebook, page 323:

     Here you see the torch of Althaea, the avengeress; she was a good sister, but a bad mother.

References

• “avengeress”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “avengeress”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volumes I (A–C), New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Anagrams

• nerve gases