Dictionary

observeress en · NOUN

Etymology

From observer + -ess.

Meanings

1. (rare) A female observer.
   • Meteors To-Night.—[…]There is nothing so beautiful and so well calculated to develop the (sentimental) faculties as the study of astronomy, in classes of two, of a summer’s night, so we are told, and ’tis presumable that the observers and observeresses will be numerous to-night. 1878 August 16, Muscatine Weekly Journal, thirty-seventh year, Muscatine, Iowa, column 2:
   • It was written with a typewriter and contains the announcement “the writer of the within is not a matinee girl, merely an observer of men and things.” It is a gamble, however, that the observer is an observeress. 1900 October 2, “Gushing Matinee Maidens”, in The Buffalo Enquirer, volume 57, number 56, Buffalo, N.Y., page 7, column 5:
   • It would be hypercritical to say that Miss [Grace] Elliston overdoes the part just here. But since it is true that such a sensation can be experienced by a crucially interested observeress there must be some ground for it. 1905 December 1, “Girl Reporter in a Play”, in The Kansas City Star, volume 26, number 75, Kansas City, Mo., page 24, column 2:
   • Mrs. C. G. Fairley, a bird lover as well as an observeress of note, reports that she has seen the first robin. 1918 February 9, “Here He Is”, in Wilmington Daily News, volume III, number 119, Wilmington, Oh., page three, column 3:
   • “Do you feel all right? You look pale,” the flight observeress asked, anxiously. 1959 January 26, “Dusty” Miller, “The Daily Grist”, in Wilmington News-Journal, one hundred twenty-first year, number 86, Wilmington, Oh., page 4, column 2:

Forms