Dictionary

webstress en · NOUN

Etymology

From webster + -ess.

Meanings

1. (archaic, rare) A female webster or weaver
   • Though their plots were such as thrived in bourgeois Flanders and were retold in taproom by apprentice or Bath webstress, yet they became, with Chaucer, sophisticated short stories, flavoured with cautious balancing, allusive aphorism and with refined double-speaking even in the midst of earthy words and acts. 2016, Earle Birney, Beryl Rowland, Essays on Chaucerian Irony:
   • The stick of a webstress found in the house, Held by Eithne in the time of her travail, A withered hazel staff, Was covered with fair fresh leaves. 1922, Charles Plummer, Bethada Náem NÉrenn:
   • We read of Maedhoc's mother, a webstress; of Ciaran's mother, with her flax drying on her walls, which caught fire and set the house in flames; […] 1928, Alice Stopford Green, Irish history studies, page 14:

Forms