votaress

plural votaresses · alternative votress

1. A female votary.

   a votaress of the order

   1794, Ann Radcliffe, Mysteries of Udolpho

   3 more examples

   His seeming rescue by a votaress of the high priestess of the sun had been but a part of the mimicry of their heathen ceremony—the sun looking down upon him through the opening at the top of the court had claimed him as his own, and the priestess had come from the inner temple to save him from the polluting hands of worldlings—to save him as a human offering to their flaming deity.

   1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 167

   Madness grew in the eyes of the capering votaress and was reflected in the eyes of the watchers.

   1931, Robert E. Howard, The Black Stone

   Aminta, of course, falls in love with Sylvia at first sight, and she, chaste votaress of Diana, is outraged.

   2009 July 1, Alastair Macaulay, “Under the Crescent Moon: The Huntress as (Angry) Object of Desire”, in New York Times