Now rare. [f. as prec. + -ESS.] A female judge; a woman who judges.
1535. Coverdale, Judg. iv. 4. At ye same tyme was Iudgesse in Israel the prophetisse Debbora, the wyfe of Lapidoth.
1632. Heywood, 1st Part Iron Age, I. Wks. 1874, III. 279. I make you Iudgesse … You needes must say I am the properer man.
1776. J. Adams, in Fam. Lett. (1876), 172. You are now … elected into an important office, that of judgess of the Tory ladies.
1889. C. Edwardes, Sardinia, 304. Eleonora, the judgess.
