pythoness
Americannoun
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a woman believed to be possessed by a soothsaying spirit, as the priestess of Apollo at Delphi.
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a woman who practices divination.
noun
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a woman, such as Apollo's priestess at Delphi, believed to be possessed by an oracular spirit
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a female soothsayer
Gender
See -ess.
Etymology
Origin of pythoness
1325–75; python 2 + -ess; replacing Middle English phytonesse < Middle French
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.
Or the convulsion of the pythoness on the tripod?
From Getting Married by Bernard Shaw
Thereupon ensued a hideous war; a yelling as of the evil demons with which the pythoness pretended to be familiar; unintelligible to vulgar ears; requiring an interpreter from the oyster-quays.
From Trevethlan: (Vol 2 of 3) A Cornish Story. by William Davy Watson
There was a break, as if the pythoness had uttered the oracle, and now the woman went on, in a rhapsody-wearied voice: 'And you see, Rupert isn't this, he isn't.
From Women in Love by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
In the enigmatic heart of its impenetrable iris cold fire lived, cold passionless flames leaped and died and leaped again like the sorcerous fire of a pythoness.
From The Bronze Bell by Louis Joseph Vance
“Carriages without horses shall go,” is the “prophecy” attributed to that mythical fifteenth century pythoness, Mother Shipton; really the ex post facto forgery of Charles Hindley, the second-hand bookseller, in 1862.
From The Brighton Road The Classic Highway to the South by Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
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.
