fricatrice

F4R1I1C3A1T1R1I1C3E1
/ˈfɹɪkətɹɪs/

noun

A lewd woman or prostitute.

Scrabble 17

Meanings

nounfricatrice (plural fricatrices)

plural fricatrices

  1. obsoleteA lewd woman or prostitute.

    And am asham'd you' should ha' no more forehead / Than thus to be the patron, or St. George, To a lewd harlot, a base fricatrice, / A female devil, in a male outside

    1605 (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Volpone, or The Foxe. A Comœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC, Act IV, scene ii, page 498
    1 more example

    One can imagine an ideal servent who serves out of pure love for his master, just as one can an ideal rustic who remains a ditcher from a love of nature, or an ideal fricatrice who spreads her legs a dozen times a night from a love of copulation. But one never encounters these fabulous creatures in reality.

    1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter 35, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN
  2. obsoleteA woman who masturbates.

Origin

  1. Latinfrictrix
  2. Englishfricatrice

Compare Latin frictrix, from fricare (“to rub”).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

fricatrice. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fricatrice

MLA

“fricatrice.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fricatrice. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “fricatrice,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fricatrice.

Source: fricatrice on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.