Dictionary

afflictress en · NOUN

Etymology

From afflicter + -ess.

Meanings

1. (rare) A female afflicter.
   • 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. 1998, Bulletin of the Asia Institute - Volume 10, page 255:
   • 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. 1886, James Hain Friswell, The Gentle Life: Essays in Aid of the Formation of Character:
   • Another afflictress of childbirth in the Talishi beliefs is Shasha (šaša). 2014, Garnik Asatrian, Victoria Arakelova, “On the South Caspian Contact Zone: Some Talishi Folk Beliefs”, in Iran and the Caucasus, volume 18, number 2:

Forms