Also 7 fost(e)resse. [fem. of FOSTERER: see -ESS.] A female who fosters, in the senses of the vb.

1

1603.  Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 161. That hope whereof Pindarus writeth, the nurse and fostresse of old age.

2

1611.  Heywood, Gold. Age, IV. i. Wks. 1874, III. 54.

                        Great Athens
The nurse and fostresse of my infancy
I haue instructed in the sea-mans craft.

3

a. 1637.  B. Jonson, Sp. at Pr. Henry’s Barriers, Wks. (Rtldg.), 578/1.

          Lady.  Glory of knights, and hope of all the earth,
Come forth; your fostress bids! who from your birth
Hath bred you to this hour, and for this throne.

4

1648.  Hexham, Een Mamme … a Nurse, a Fosteresse, or a Foster-Mother.

5

1883.  Swinburne, Century of Roundels, In Guernsey.

        My mother sea, my fostress, what new strand,
What new delight of waters, may this be,
The fairest found since time’s first breezes fanned
    My mother sea?
    Ibid. (1891), Eton: an Ode, in Athenæum, 30 May, 700/1.
And ever as time’s flow brightened, a river more dark than the storm-clothed sea,
And age upon age rose fairer and larger in promise of hope set free,
With England Eton her child kept pace as a fostress of men to be.

6

  appositively.

7

1882.  Swinburne, Tristram of Lyonesse, Athens, 176.

        Peace made bright with fruit of battle, stronger made for storm gone down,
With the flower of song held heavenward for the violet of her crown
Woven about the fragrant forehead of the fostress maiden’s town.

8