songstress

From songster +‎ -ess. Compare West Frisian sjongeres (“songstress”), Dutch zangeres (“songstress”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsɑŋɡ.stɹɪs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑŋɡstɹɪs

songstress (plural songstresses)

1. A female singer.
   • 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:

     The songstress paused, and was answered by one or two deep and hollow groans, that seemed to proceed from the very agony of the mortal strife.

   • 1834, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter II, in The Last Days of Pompeii. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […]; successor to Henry Colburn, →OCLC:

     At every pause in the music she gracefully waved her flower-basket round, inviting the loiterers to buy; and many a sesterce was showered into the basket, either in compliment to the music or in compassion to the songstress—for she was blind.

   • 1877, Charles Reade, A Woman-Hater‎^[1]:

     Were I to reproduce the nine other paragraphs, it would be a very curious, instructive, and tedious specimen of literature; and, who knows? I might corrupt some immaculate soul, inspire some actor or actress, singer or songstress, with an itch for public self-laudation, a foible from which they are all at present so free. Witness the Era, the Hornet, and Figaro.

   • 2025 June 19, Glenn Kenny, “‘Shanghai Blues’ Review: Slapstick Fun in a 1984 Tsui Hark Picture”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Sally Yeh is the winsome and amiable character known as Stool, who’s living next door to the ambitious and tetchy songstress Shu-Shu, who’s both commanding and funny as portrayed by Sylvia Chang.

2. A female songbird.

• (female singer): cantrix (archaic), chanteuse, chantress, singeress (obsolete, rare)

• songster