frogess

Noun

frogess (plural frogesses)

1. A female frog (amphibian).
   • The night was warm, the pool was still, / No sound was heard from lake or hill, / Save where, upon a log decayed, / A bull-frog croaked his serenade: / Wake, frogess of my love, awake, / And listen to my song; / The heron roosts far from the lake, / The pickerel his rest doth take / The water-weeds...1848, Fitch W[aterman] Taylor, “The Bull-frogs’ Serenade”, in A Voyage Round the World, and Visits to Various Foreign Countries, in the United States Frigate Columbia; […], 9th edition, volume I, New...
   • These superstitions and traditions were all odd and strange beliefs, which mingled the materialistic and the spiritual most incongruously; but they were not so degrading, and they were not so far from truth as the “enlightened” ideas respecting our origin, circulated in costly volumes during recent...1860 October, “The Theology of Common Things”, in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume XXVII, Edinburgh: Sutherland & Knox; London: Partridge & Co., page 526, column 1
2. (offensive, rare) A Frenchwoman.
   • Do Frogs like children? I am not terribly convinced they do. Before I get pelted with tomatoes by indignant Frogesses, could I simply ask you to draw your own conclusion from the large number of abusive terms used to describe children? Our “brats” is nothing compared with the variety of French...1986, Genevière Edis, ““Le Français méprise la jeunesse””, in Merde Encore!: More of the Real French You Were Never Taught at School, New York, N.Y.: Fireside Books, published 1998, →ISBN, chapter X...
   • — I go on. To Dover and then take ship for France. / — God help us, you are indeed up. That sounds like state business. / — War on the papists. / — For God’s sake leave at least the English papishes alone, they have suffered enough. There is enough trouble here with the frogs and frogesses. The...1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford, part one, London: Hutchinson, →ISBN, page 37