forgeress

English

Etymology

From forger +‎ -ess. Compare Middle English forgeresse (“a female metalworker”).

Noun

forgeress (plural forgeresses)

(dated, rare) A female forger (a person who forges, fabricates, or produces falsely).
- 1655, [Madeleine] de Scudéry, translated by [John Davies], book I, in Clelia. An Excellent New Romance Dedicated to Mademoiselle de Longueville. […], part I, London: […] Humphrey Moseley and Thomas Dring, […], →OCLC, page 54:
  [I]f all theſe forgereſſes of affected ſimperings ſhould not be praiſed by their Gallants, they would ſoon leave them, ſince it is certain they make none, but to attract lovers, and we ſhould ſee no more that which is ſo unpleaſing to the ſight; […]
- 1916 February, Inez Haynes Gillmore, “The Californiacs”, in Charles K[ellogg] Field, editor, Sunset, the Pacific Monthly, San Francisco, Calif.: Woodhead, Field & Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 60, column 2:
  The last three months of my stay in San Francisco I cut out all the pictures of pretty girls from three newspapers. They included all kinds of women—society, club, athletic, college, high-brow, low-brow; highway-women, burglaresses, forgeresses and murderesses.
- 1923 February 18, Alma Whitaker, “Only Clara Is Lacking: Los Angeles ‘Celebrities’ in San Quentin Interviewed Midst All Comforts of Home”, in The Los Angeles Times, volume XLII, Los Angeles, Calif., →ISSN, →OCLC, part II (Editorial Section), page 7, column 6:
  It is queer to shake hands and chat socially with three convicted murderesses, with half a dozen virile young forgeresses, and to be hailed as a welcome guest from their home town.
- 1997, George F. Custen, “[Darryl Francis] Zanuck the Writer”, in Twentieth Century’s Fox: Darryl Zanuck and the Culture of Hollywood, New York, N.Y.: BasicBooks, →ISBN, part I (Foundations), page 50:
  From petty crooks who “get theirs,” to the occasional glamorous female “forgeresses,” Zanuck’s early movie world is an imaginative place populated by the full spectrum of criminal types, all of whom prey on the fabulous (and amply documented) world of the wealthy.