noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Female equivalent of murderer: a woman who commits murder. dated, feminine, form-of

   "‘[…] Yet am I very fair, Kallikrates!’ / ‘I hate thee, murdress, and I have no wish to see thee.[…]’"

2. 2
   a woman murderer wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

murderer

Example

More examples

"Surely no woman as beautiful as Mary Cavendish could be a murderess."

Etymology

From Middle English morderes, from Old French morderesse, moeurdrese; equivalent to murder + -ess.

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