actress
Americannoun
noun
-
a woman who acts in a play, film, broadcast, etc
-
informal a woman who puts on a false manner in order to deceive others
Usage
Use of the word actress to refer to a female who acts is old-fashioned. The modern gender-neutral form is actor
Gender
What's the difference between actress and actor? See -ess.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of actress
Vocabulary lists containing actress
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Fricker won the Oscar for best supporting actress in 1990 for playing Daniel Day-Lewis's on-screen mother in My Left Foot.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
“We reject it completely,” said actress Karenina Ivankovic, 37.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
Acclaimed actress Helen Mirren is giving buyers another chance to own a piece of her own illustrious Hollywood history—this time with a multimillion-dollar discount.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026
Even 10 years ago, the news that an actress in her mid-40s was pregnant would have caused a stir, with speculation about fertility treatments and hand-wringing over advanced maternal age.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
Before long she was telling this stranger about her anxiety in not being able to phone her father, and giving details of her family life, including about her famous mother, Patricia Neal, the actress.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
"I always sort of go back to classic actresses in the way that they could sort of toe a line between extreme femininity and just rock hard will and grit," she said.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
Many actresses warrant other titles, and there should be spaces for those, too.
From Salon ● May 10, 2026
The two actresses make for a smashing comic duo in this production of the Noël Coward play about two women eager to rekindle a romance with the same French lothario.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
In Glenn’s fiction debut, Lila Devlin, once one of the most famous actresses on the planet, returns to Los Angeles 10 years after the kidnapping and death of her daughter, Josie.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 19, 2026
The actors and actresses beside me were all wide-eyed.
From "From Twinkle, with Love" by Sandhya Menon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
