devouress

English

Etymology

Shortened from devoureress, from the Old French devoureresse, feminine form of devoreor.

Noun

devouress (plural devouresses)

1. (obsolete) A female devourer.

   She was a devouress of men, exhausting one and then moving on to the next.

   • 1930, Nicholas Roerich, “The Great Mother”, in Shambhala, New York, N.Y.: Frederick A[bbott] Stokes Company, →OCLC, pages 280–281:

     The devotee of the East cited the so-called Tourfan Madonna as being in his opinion an evolution of the Goddess Marichi, who after being a cruel devouress of children gradually evolved into their solicitous guardian, becoming the spiritual comrade of Kuvera, god of fortune and wealth.

   • 2005, Jan Assmann, Death and salvation in ancient Egypt, Cornell University Press, page 149:

     In the New Kingdom, this new aspect of death as enemy was condensed into the "Devouress", the monster that sat beside the scale at the Judgement of the Dead, ready to swallow the heart of any deceased person if it was laden with guilt when examined and thus found to be too heavy.

References

• “devouress”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Anagrams

• duoverses