drunkardess
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: drunkardesses
Etymology: From drunkard + -ess.
Senses: examples: text: I remember a time (not so very long since) when the slaughter of a single man or woman sufficed to rouse the whole country to the highest pitch of excitement, to fill all the newspapers with immense columns of details and particulars, leaders, pleaders, observers, and examiners, which was daily renewed in shape and colour, with additional remarks, and so kept up the steam for a month or more, until another drunkard happened to suffocate another drunkardess, when the wheel set to turn on its rounds and round abouts again, till new orders.
ref: 1870 October 29, “Mental Aeronaut”, “The War.—The Science of “Making” News—A Fresh Invention.”, in The Preston Chronicle and Lancashire Advertiser, number 3095, page 6:
text: These vulgar drunkardesses are only fit themes for such papers as the Alliance News; and yet socially their degeneration may be productive of more harm than the demoralizing influence of half-a-dozen eau-de-cologne swillers in Mayfair or Belgravia.
ref: 1871 February 8, “Occasional Notes”, in The Pall Mall Gazette, volume XIII, number 1869, page 4:
text: He is a good German, and he never brings presents to any little boys or girls who ever expect to be drunkards or drunkardesses.
ref: 1880 December 22, Camden Daily Post, Camden, N.J.:
text: The drunkardess was as profane, as shameless, as maudlin, and as pitiable a wreck as her brother drunkard often is.
ref: 1887 March 3, Buffalo Weekly Express, Buffalo, N.Y., page 5:
text: He [William Lane] also complains that while Mary was a member of his household she acquired the habit of drinking, and is now a habitual drunkard or drunkardess.
ref: 1890 March 19, Lincoln Evening News, volume IX, number 149, Lincoln, Neb.:
text: The following list of drunkards and “drunkardesses” were given ten days by Mayor Westcott this morning in lieu of the usual fine of $3.67: William Campbell, Julia Lamont, Sara Paxton and Samuel Bacon.
ref: 1894 April 24, Camden Daily Telegram, number 2501, Camden, N.J.:
text: John Kissinger says that it was on the first day of May, 1893, that Florence put her hand in his and promised to love and obey. He charges that she has forgotten all about this, that she has become an habitual drunkardess and has been frequently fined in police court because of her affection for the cup that inebriates though it cheers.
ref: 1899 May 25, The Lincoln Evening News and Daily Call, Lincoln, Neb., page 6:
text: Lovette Babcock cast as Oletha Middlecraft, made a bewitching young drunkardess.
ref: 1900 December 1, Goldsboro Daily Argus, volume XXXII, number 46, Goldsboro, N.C.:
text: If someone would suggest something new as a remedy in the case of Mrs. Jenkins, chronic drunkard or drunkardess, as the case may be, Judge Austin would no doubt feel under obligations to him.
ref: 1902 August 20, “Female Drunkard Hopeless Case”, in The Los Angeles Record:
text: Miss Tinkers confessed that she has an uncontrollable hankering for gin “splits” and blackberry “sangarees,” and pleaded guilty to the impeachment that she is a habitual drunkardess under the vagrancy act.
ref: 1909 August 13, The Evening Star, number 17,854, Washington, D.C., page 17:
text: I, for one, never refused a cold bottle of beer or a tall, cool, frosty Tom Collins and never will unless doctor says so. Does that make me “cheap,” “disgusting” or a “drunkardess”.
ref: 1936 July 20, The Detroit Free Press, 106th year, number 77, page 9:
text: This gives one time to relish the great charm of Miss Evans, whose first few minutes on the stage as a titled drunkardess are deftly and amusingly played, and whose subsequent behavior as a lost soul is touching.
ref: 1950 September 19, John Chapman, “'Daphne Laureola' Mildly Funny; Its Star, Edith Evans, Is Grand”, in Daily News, volume 32, number 74, New York, N.Y., page 63:
text: Rome, once noted for the sobriety of its women, became known for its drunkardesses.
ref: 2008, Iain Gately, Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol, Gotham Books:
text: A letter to the editor may have exaggerated its success in reforming alcoholics, writing that a “few years since there were hundreds of miserable drunkards in our streets—literally in our streets.There were then in Nantucket over 300 drunkards and drunkardesses And 286 Of These miserable inebriates—256 men and 30 women—have been snatched, as brands from the burning, from the reeking haunts of intemperance.”
ref: 2015, Frank Morral, Barbara Ann White, Hidden History of Nantucket, The History Press, page 79:
glosses: A female drunkard.