English

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Etymology

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From auditor-ess.

Noun

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auditress (plural auditresses)

  1. (dated) A female hearer.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book CC”, in Paradise Lost. [], London: [] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker []; [a]nd by Robert Boulter []; [a]nd Matthias Walker, [], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: [], London: Basil Montagu Pickering [], 1873, →OCLC, lines 48-51:
      Yet went she not, as not with such discourse / Delighted or not capable her ear / Of what was night: such pleasure she reserved, / Adam relating, she sole auditress
    • 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XIV, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. [], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., [], →OCLC, page 253:
      I have forbidden Adèle to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting with repletion; have the goodness to serve her as auditress and interlocutrice: