subs. (colloquial).—1. A masculine woman; a virago. Also (the adjectival preceded the figurative substantive usage) AMAZONIAN = manlike, bold, quarrelsome [in quot. 1610 = beardless].
1595. SHAKESPEARE, 3 Henry VI., i. 4. How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex To triumph like an AMAZONIAN trull. Ibid. (1610), Coriolanus, ii. 2. His AMAZONIAN chin.
1609. C. BULLER, Monarchia Feminina (1673), 64. These AMAZONIAN dames begin to wax weary of their mates.
1711. STEELE, Spectator, 104, 3. This AMAZONIAN Hunting Habit for Ladies.
1758. JOHNSON, Idler, No. 6, 2. I am far from wishing … the AMAZON … any diminution … of fame.
1762. GOLDSMITH, Female Warriors [British Magazine, Jan.]. When I see the avenues of the Strand beset every night with fierce AMAZONS … I cannot help wishing that such martial talents were converted to the benefit of the public.
1767. FORDYCE, Sermons to Young Women, I. iii. 105. To … men an AMAZON never fails to be forbidding.
1809. BYRON, Childe Harold, i. 57.
| Yet are Spain’s maids no race of AMAZONS, | |
| But form’d for all the ’witching arts of love. |
1837. HOWITT, Rural Life, III. vi. His AMAZONIAN lady, half the head taller than himself.
1837. CARLYLE, The French Revolution, I. vii. 5. Him … they suspend there … a horrible end? Nay, the rope broke, as French ropes often did; or else an AMAZON cut it.
1839. W. H. AINSWORTH, Jack Sheppard (1889), 69. Mistress Poll Maggot was a beauty on a much larger scale—in fact, a perfect AMAZON.
1844. Blackwood’s Magazine, lvi. 214. Caps were dragged off, and nails shown with AMAZONIAN spirit.
1853. KANE, Grinnell Expedition, xlvi. 425. Extremes meet in the Esquimaux of Greenland and the AMAZONS of Paris.
2. (obsolete chess).—The Queen.
1656. BEALE, Chesse-play, 2. The Queen or AMAZON is placed in the fourth house from the corner of the field by the side of her King, and alwayes in her own colour.
