contendress

English

Etymology

contender +‎ -ess

Noun

contendress (plural contendresses)

1. (nonce word, obsolete) A female contender.
   • 1858, Chapman, “A Hymn to Venus”, in Homer's Batrachomyomachia, Hymns and Epigrams, page 82:

     The all-of-gold-made laughter-loving Dame
     Left odorous Cyprus, and for Troy became
     A swift contendress, her pass cutting all
     Along the clouds, and made her instant fall
     On fountful Ida, that her mother-breasts
     Gives to the preyful brood of savage beasts.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “contendress”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)