observeress

English

Etymology

From observer +‎ -ess.

Noun

observeress (plural observeresses)

1. (rare) A female observer.
   • 1878 August 16, Muscatine Weekly Journal, thirty-seventh year, Muscatine, Iowa, column 2:

     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.

   • 1900 October 2, “Gushing Matinee Maidens”, in The Buffalo Enquirer, volume 57, number 56, Buffalo, N.Y., page 7, column 5:

     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.

   • 1905 December 1, “Girl Reporter in a Play”, in The Kansas City Star, volume 26, number 75, Kansas City, Mo., page 24, column 2:

     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.

   • 1918 February 9, “Here He Is”, in Wilmington Daily News, volume III, number 119, Wilmington, Oh., page three, column 3:

     Mrs. C. G. Fairley, a bird lover as well as an observeress of note, reports that she has seen the first robin.

   • 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:

     “Do you feel all right? You look pale,” the flight observeress asked, anxiously.