froggess

plural froggesses

1. alternativeAlternative form of frogess.

   My name is Puffcheek—Prince Puffcheek, son of King Mud, who is sovereign in these parts; and my mother is a respectable froggess, of Italy, whose family comes out of the Po.

   1828, “The Christmas-Box. An Annual Present for Children. […]”, in The Monthly Review, volume VII, number XXIX, London: Hurst, Chance & Co., […], page 75

   5 more examples

   The tenderness of the froggess is truly touching, and is calculated to draw tears from the eyes.[…]The concluding dialogue between the frog and the froggess is equal to anything we find in the ancient ballads which, for their pathos and simplicity, are so highly remarkable.

   1841 May 29, “A Specimen of Modern Criticism”, in George W[illiam] M[acArthur] Reynolds, editor, The Teetotaler, a Weekly Journal Devoted to Temperance, Literature, and Science, volume I, number 49, London: George Henderson, […], page 43, column 2

   Wake, froggess! oh, my love, awake, / And listen to my song; / The heron roosts far from the lake, / The pickerel his rest doth take / The water-weeds among. / The sun has put his fire out, / The daylight’s scarcely seen; / No enemy is round about. / Then. froggess, rise and poke your snout, / Above the waters green.

   1878, “The Bull-Frog’s Serenade”, in Daniel Curry, editor, National Repository, Devoted to General and Religious Literature, Criticism, and Art, volume III, Cincinnati, Oh.: Hitchcock and Walden; New York, N.Y.: Nelson and Phillips, page 416

   The froggesses were, of course, far from wishing to acquire a real resemblance to their model: they felt that the piquancy of their imitation lay very much in the fact that they never could be like her enough not to remind everybody who saw them that they were decidedly different and had all the perfections of froggesses. A few froggesses, exaggerating the fashion, as foolish people sometimes will, took to pinching in their mouths in order to reduce them a little nearer to the size of hers, but even they would have greatly resented being mistaken for her.

   1884, Augusta Webster, Daffodil and the Croäxaxicans: A Romance of History, London: Macmillan and Co., chapter X, page 125

   Frogs and froggesses in decollete dresses / All joined in a sprightly quadrille; / “Swing around! Balance all!” Mr. Rana would call / To the batrachian orchestra’s trill.

   1901 April 27, “An Event in the Bog”, in The Daily New Era, 3rd edition, number 7440, Lancaster, Penn., page 10, column 4

   An inscription in the British Museum tells us that under one of his titles Khnum was called “the King of Frogs.” There is no proof, perhaps, of his being a frog himself, but his son, Ptah, had a Frog-headed form, and his consort, Hekat, is the Froggess.[…]If this was a Totem of the Motherhood, the descent would be the same as if it were from the Goddess Hekat, only their sign is simple Frog, whereas the Frog had been elevated in status by becoming an image of the Mother as Mistress Hekat, the Froggess who typified the Divine Mother in the transforming Moon.

   1907, Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World: A Work of Reclamation and Restitution in Twelve Books, Leeds: Celephaïs Press, published 2008, pages 30 and 65