Feminine words for occupations...

[neotoma]

English is a weird language. There are feminine words for some occupations, though they're so archaic that they are mainly used for surnames now.

The ones I can come up with easily are:

webster -- weaver
baxter -- baker
brewster -- brewer
spinster -- spinner

Are there others?

ETA: I was thinking about words with the -ster construction, though words with the -ess construction are equally valid.

Comments

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Ugh, that is an awful construction.

On the other hand, I sort of like "adventuress" -- must be my fondness for Sherlock Holmes stories.

[tricksterquinn.livejournal.com]

I rather dig 'adventuress' myself, but that may just be my general enjoyment of women historically having too much fun to be socially acceptable.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Well, the problem with "adventuress (http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/adventuress)" is that it carries bad connotations. Or maybe I've just read too many stories and bios set in the 19th century in which wild and disreputable women became romantically and/or sexually involved with rich and very reputable men, to the shock and horror of society.

"Poetess (http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/poetess)" is another word (like "authoress") that I'd like to get rid of. Neither one is flattering toward the woman or her talent.

[tricksterquinn.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say "bad" - those are the very connotations that are why I'm rather fond of the word. Shocking and horrifying society - especially in the nineteenth century - is something I can get behind, really.

Women experiencing life in it's highest highs and lowest lows, by doing things that would be perfectly permissible were they men - but are of course scandalous because they are of the fairer sex.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

It's not the shocking and horrifying society that I mind. It's the implication--again, one that I've read far too often--that an adventuress is no more or less than a gold digger.

Adventurer vs. adventuress

[dorothy1901]

A bit of dialogue from The Palm Beach Story (1942, Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, dir. Preston Sturges):

Gerry: I may not even get married again. I might become an adventuress.

Tom: I can just see you starting for China on a twenty-six foot sail boat.

Gerry: You're thinking of an adventurer, dear. An adventuress never goes on anything under three hundred feet with a crew of eighty.

Re: Adventurer vs. adventuress

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

hee! That's the kind of adventuress I'd want to be.