[f. TEMPTER + -ESS.] A female tempter.
1594. Nashe, Unfort. Trav., Wks. (Grosart), V. 80. The place … was a pernicious curtizans house named Tabitha the Temptresses.
1633. Ford, Broken H., V. ii. Be not jealous, Euphranea; I shall scarcely prove a temptress.
1708. J. F. Ostervald, Nat. Uncleanness, To Rdr. xxxii. Resolutely repelling the Tempress with this short but unanswerable Expostulation.
1826. Scott, Woodst., ii. That the daughter … would, like the wicked wife of Job, become a temptress to her father in the hour of affliction.
1883. G. H. Boughton, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 179/1. St. Anthony and his undraped temptress.
