actress
Americannoun
noun
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a woman who acts in a play, film, broadcast, etc
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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.
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.
Andrew Wilson’s “I Wanna Be Loved by You,” with a seductive cover image of the actress, offers a surprisingly sensible life history in quickfire snippets of information, or “100 Takes.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026
Divorced three times - twice from the same woman, British actress Talulah Riley - Musk is frank about his faults.
From BBC • Jun. 4, 2026
The Golden Globes rarely get it as right as they did in awarding Danes the drama series best actress award, at 15, for ABC’s “My So-Called Life.”
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 3, 2026
The 28-year-old says she is already a "massive fan" of actress Deborah Ann Woll who voiced and provided the motion capture for the character in God of War Ragnarök.
From BBC • Jun. 3, 2026
Maybe after all this I could get a role as an actress!
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
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.
