Instigatrix

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Female equivalent of instigator. feminine, form-of

    "Better perhaps would it have been for the accused had she had no other advocates than her innocence and her firm imposing demeanour ; but her death was resolved on, and two days after she was condemned as “ the instigatrix of the crimes committed by the last tyrant of France ; as having herself maintained a correspondence with foreign powers, particularly with her brother the king of Bohemia and Hungary, with those emigrants who were formerly French princes, and with perfidious generals […]"

Example

More examples

"Better perhaps would it have been for the accused had she had no other advocates than her innocence and her firm imposing demeanour ; but her death was resolved on, and two days after she was condemned as “ the instigatrix of the crimes committed by the last tyrant of France ; as having herself maintained a correspondence with foreign powers, particularly with her brother the king of Bohemia and Hungary, with those emigrants who were formerly French princes, and with perfidious generals […]"

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin īnstīgātrīx. By surface analysis, instigator + -trix.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.