noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A female poet. dated

   "The ancient poetess singeth, that Hesperus all things bringeth, / Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind."

2. 2
   a woman poet wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

poetress

Example

More examples

"Do you know Umm Qirfa, the 80-year-old Arab poetess who was murdered by Muhammad?"

Etymology

From poet + -ess. Compare Middle English poetresse (“poetess”).

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