Lessing

American  

[les-ing] / ˈlɛs ɪŋ /

noun

1. Doris (May), 1919–2013, British novelist in Africa; born in Persia; Nobel Prize in Literature 2007.

2. Gotthold Ephraim 1729–81, German critic and dramatist.

---

Lessing British  

/ ˈlɛsɪŋ /

noun

1. Doris ( May ). born 1919, English novelist and short-story writer, brought up in Rhodesia: her novels include the five-novel sequence Children of Violence (1952–69), The Golden Notebook (1962), a series of science-fiction works (1979–83), The Good Terrorist (1985), and The Sweetest Dream (2001). Nobel prize for literature 2007

2. Gotthold Ephraim (ˈɡɔthɔlt ˈeːfrɑɪm). 1729–81, German dramatist and critic. His plays include Miss Sara Sampson (1755), the first German domestic tragedy, and Nathan der Weise (1779). He is noted for his criticism of French classical dramatists, and for his treatise on aesthetics Laokoon (1766)

---

Example Sentences

They include Steve Lessing, a former Lehman Brothers Holdings and Barclays executive who worked with Bush and with Finback founding partner Jack Oliver in years past.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 13, 2026

When a journalist informed the novelist Doris Lessing she had won the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature, she responded: "Oh, Christ."

From BBC • Oct. 7, 2025

There is one book that changed my life — it didn’t wreck my life — “The Golden Notebook” by Doris Lessing.

From Salon • May 30, 2025

Tuesday in an isolated desert area near Lessing Avenue and Shadow Mountain Road, near U.S.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 26, 2024

During the entire walk, across the heaths and fens near Cambridge, Lessing did all the talking; Watson said not one word.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee