Also emb-. [f. AMBASSADOR + -ESS. Varied with forms in -drice, -drix, -trice, -trix.]
1. A female ambassador or messenger.
[1577–87. Holinshed, Chr., III. 910/1. The two ladies ambassadors of the king of England, sitting in great estate.]
1594. Carew, trans. Tasso (1881), 53. Dawnyng th’ Embassadresse was ris’ne from bed, Tydings to beare, how now grey morne annies.
1600. Chapman, Iliad, III. 126. Iris, the Rainbow, then came down, ambassadress from heaven.
1703. Rowe, Fair Penit., I. i. 213. Well, my Embassadress, what must we treat of?
1755. Croker, Ariosto’s Orl. Fur., XXXII. cx. Near to her th’ embassadress did rise.
1761. Smollett, Gil Blas (1802), I. IV. ii. 331. She … bad her ambassadress retire into another room.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, III. 187. Are you ambassadresses From him to me?
2. The wife of an AMBASSADOR (leger) 2.
1716. Lady M. Montague, Lett., I. xxxi. 107. The French Ambassadress agreed with me as to his good mien.
1777. Gibbon, Misc. Wks. (1814), II. 209. I cannot quite determine whether I shall sup at Madame Necker’s or the Sardinian Ambassadress’s.
1880. Disraeli, Endym., I. xxxiii. 305. Not only an ambassador, but an ambassadress … had been asked to meet them.
