A female compositor (in a printing office); a female composer (in music).
1867. Friends’ Intelligencer, XXIV. 7 Dec., 633/1. ‘Oh! it is nothing,’ you say, ‘to set up type—nothing in the world easier,’ and the compositress points toward a dusty, unused case, full of rusty, pied type.
1879. Musical World, XXXVIII. 28 Jan., 55/1. Dr. Doran’s fragrant ‘Summer Flowers,’ set to music by Sarah Gilbert (Hale and Sons), would have been a more acceptable present had the compositress submitted her work to a pedagogue, able to detect, and willing to point out for reconsideration, such faults [etc.].
1879. London, Provincial, & Colonial Press News, Nov., 22/1. ‘Compositress’ is a word that seems likely to figure in the next British census returns. In London lady type-lifters, not to mention lady ‘readers,’ form no inconsiderable body, and in many provincial towns the Printing trade is fully recognised as presenting a fair field for female employment.
1882. (poem title) To a Fair Compositress, in Harvard Advocate, XXXIII. 26 May, 95/2.
| Oh, say, Maria, Julia, Jane, or Mame, | |
| Or Nancy, if that chance to be thy name, | |
| Dost ever have hysteric laughing fit | |
| When setting up my journalistic wit? | |
| Ah, no, my Em, my galley slave, my case, | |
| My sweet-faced, smutty-fingered, bootless chase; | |
| Thy setting of my jokes can move thee not, | |
| So fine a proof of it is always got. |
1885. Pall Mall G., 28 July. The mother … stated that her daughter was a compositress.
1901. F. K. Foster, Evolution of a Trade Unionist, xii. 104. ‘Oh, the little compositress you had under your wing at the printers’ picnic,’ said Elder.
