[cf. CHURCHMAN.] female member of the church, spec. of the Church of England.
1722. De Foe, Rel. Courtsh., App. (1840), 285. If I were a church woman, and my mistress a dissenter.
1775. Smollett, Humph. Cl. (1793), I. 94–5. Though she is a violent church-woman … she would have no objection, at present, to treat on the score of matrimony with an Anabaptist, Quaker, or Jew.
1876. Miss Yonge, Womankind, xxi. 169. A Church-woman ought not to suffer herself to become attached to a man outside her own Church.
