Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A nun; a woman who has vowed religious retirement. Also written cloisteress.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare A nun.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A nun.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

cloister +‎ -ess

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Examples

  • While they were talking, a gentleman entered whom the duke had sent to Olivia, and he said, “So please you, my lord, I might not be admitted to the lady, but by her handmaid she returned you this answer: Until seven years hence, the element itself shall not behold her face; but like a cloistress she will walk veiled, watering her chamber with her tears for the sad remembrance of her dead brother.

    Twelfth Night; or, What you Will 1878

  • Olivia, and he said, "So please you, my lord, I might not be admitted to the lady, but by her handmaid she returned you this answer: Until seven years hence, the element itself shall not behold her face; but like a cloistress she will walk veiled, watering her chamber with her tears for the sad remembrance of her dead brother."

    Tales from Shakespeare Mary Lamb 1805

  • Olivia, and he said: 'So please you, my lord, I might not be admitted to the lady, but by her handmaid she returned you this answer: Until seven years hence, the element itself shall not behold her face; but like a cloistress she will walk veiled, watering her chamber with her tears for the sad remembrance of her dead brother.'

    Tales from Shakespeare Mary Lamb 1805

  • ‘fornicatress’, ‘cloistress’, ‘jointress’ (all in Shakespeare);

    English Past and Present Richard Chenevix Trench 1846

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