gladiatress

plural gladiatresses

1. A female gladiator.

   Amidst all the contests of the day, we learn nothing of that illustrious gladiatress, Mrs Anne Royal.

   1834 January 22, The Boston Morning Post, volume V, number 111, Boston, Mass.: […] Charles Gordon Greene, page [2], column 3

   5 more examples

   What did ſhe ſee to doat upon the ſtile / Of Gladiatreſs? […] Mævia (a Gladiatreſs) fights with a wilde Boar, 21

   1660, Robert Stapylton, Mores Hominum. The Manners of Men, Described in Sixteen Satyrs by Juvenal: […], London: […] R. Hodgkinsonne

   Oh! nobly train’d and tutor’d by this art / To take at Flora’s ſhows the harlot’s part, / Unleſs it be her purpoſe to engage / As real gladiatreſs on the ſtage!

   1786, Edward Owen, A Translation of Juvenal and Persius into English Verse. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Rivington and Sons; J. Johnson, […]; W. Lowndes, […], and J. Debrett, […], page 49

   From the disgusting to the ridiculous there is but one step, as exemplified in Rome by the combats of dwarfs, which diverted the people exceedingly, especially when any one of them engaged with a gladiatress.

   1842 December 1, The Art-Union. A Monthly Journal of Fine Arts., volume IV, number 47, London: […] J. How, […], page 275, column 3

   M. Papillon—The combat is superb! It inflames me! Madame Papillon, will you have a bout with me? Madame Papillon—You are mad. Do you think I am a gladiatress?

   1860, “The French Almanacks for 1861”, in Bentley’s Miscellany, volume XLVIII, London: Richard Bentley, […], pages 466–467

   Two females in Vincenne, Ind., some days ago, arranged for a prize fight. A ring was formed by the sporting men, and gladiatresses stripped to the combat when the police broke in and arrested them.

   1869 June 22, “General News”, in The Weekly Sentinel, volume 4, number 22, Raleigh, N.C., page [4], column 5

   Synonyms: gladiatrix