1597 M. Drayton Englands Heroicall Epist. f. 11 We two, should comfort one another, A holy Sister, and a holy Brother, Thou as a Votresse vnto me alone, She is most chast, that's but enioy'd of one.

1600 W. Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream ii. i. 123 His mother was a Votresse of my order. View more context for this quotation

1647 R. Stapleton tr. Juvenal Sixteen Satyrs 105 Ceres, the goddesse of husbandry, whose votresses none but chast women durst presume to be.

1758 S. Johnson Idler 12 Aug. 145 She has the pleasure..of hoping to be numbered among the votresses of harmony.

1825 W. Scott Talisman iv, in Tales Crusaders III. 108 Surprise at the sudden appearance of these votresses, and the visionary manner in which they moved past him, had such influence on his imagination, that he could scarce conceive that the fair procession which he beheld was formed of creatures of this world.

1866 J. B. Rose tr. Ovid Metamorphoses 27 A votress of the power Ortygian.

1920 T. S. Moore Tragic Mothers 16 At ten years old Slim votress of intrepid Artemis, Didst thou not pace the pillared glades by night?

1841 Times 2 July 3/2 The fair votress was somewhere about 50 or 55, without a bonnet, and was clad in a stuff gown and apron.

1858 Atlantic Monthly Mar. 576/2 Every American voter or votress is allowed to keep his or her little intellectual wind-mill, coffee-mill, pepper-mill, loom, steam-engine, hand-organ, or whatever moral manufacturing or grinding apparatus he or she likes.

1894 Daily Tel. 23 Nov. 5/4 The votress insisted that she must plump for ‘Annie Sinclair’.

1918 Coronado (Calif.) Strand 31 Aug. 1/1 No autos were in evidence in the morning, except Adolph Johnson's ‘Bug’, to carry the fair votresses to the polls.