songstressn.

1684 T. Creech tr. Horace Odes iii. x, in tr. Horace Odes, Satyrs, & Epist. 101 If that thy Husband scorns thy Charms, And takes a Songstress to his Arms [L. vir Pieria paelice saucius].

1703 N. Luttrell Diary in Brief Hist. Relation State Affairs (1857) V. 303 A subscription..for Mrs. Seigniora, the Italian songstresse at the playhouses here.

1787 World & Fashionable Advertiser 2 Jan. Various are the reasons given, why a late Drury-lane Songstress has eloped.

1834 E. Bulwer-Lytton Last Days of Pompeii I. i. ii. 14 Either in compliment to the music, or in compassion to the songstress.

1871 Athenæum 8 July 46 This sisterhood of songstresses is closed by..Joanna Baillie.

1938 Foreign Service Feb. 10/3 Eddie Duchin's group of brilliant artists also includes Stanley Worth, song stylist, and Patricia Norman, charming radio songstress.

1990 S. King Stand (rev. ed.) ii. l. 680 The lead singer, songstress, whatever, had a high, yearning, reedy voice that had somehow caught his full attention.

2008 Chicago Tribune 21 Feb. (Midwest Final ed.) ii. 5/2 The multi-talented songstress has a sprightly siren's voice.

1684 J. Harington Grecian Story iii. 130 Cloath spread, they couched down, for Carpet Grass; Grove-Songstress seem'd best Musick-noise surpass.

1744 J. Thomson Summer in Seasons (new ed.) 85 Thro' the soft Silence of the listening Night, The sober-suited Songstress trills her Lay.

1791 M. Robinson Poems I. 29 Sweet Bird of Sorrow!..Sweet Songstress.

1841 W. Wordsworth in R. H. Horne Poems G. Chaucer, Modernized 48 I make a vow, That all this May I will thy songstress be.

1870 R. Avis Bird Preserving 32 In the spring it may be taken with birdlime on the lure bush, when a linnet will do for the songstress.

1918 Pop. Sci. Monthly Aug. 258 Only the female canary is fitted for military purposes, for she, not being a songstress, is not likely to betray her presence.

1978 D. Artiss Theodor Storm vii. 99 In his use of the nightingale Storm..picks up the alien literary and classical conventions of this bird as a bitter-sweet songstress.

2011 J. Pretty Luminous Coast vi. 121 The Saxons of the region knew the bird as the night songstress.