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butt-woman. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Compound of butt (“hassock”) + woman.
Pronunciation
Noun
butt-woman (plural butt-women)
- (obsolete, chiefly British) A female lay church worker who tends the pews in a church; a sextoness.
1862, Margaret Goodman, Experiences of an English Sister of Mercy, London: Smith and Elder, page 26:My thoughts always revert to the angry butt-woman when the second chapter of St. James' Epistle is read in its ordinary course.
1892 September, Annie Thomas, “The Honourable Jane.”, in Belgravia: a London magazine, volume 79, page 10:"It was more like a funeral than a wedding," said the butt-woman, who was the sole spectator of the ceremony, with the exception of the bride's uncle and aunt, told her friends afterwards.
1909 March, Edna Bourne Holman, “At Herrick's home in Devon”, in Scribner's Magazine, volume XLV, number 3, page 259:The butt-woman was just setting forth the need of money for church repairs but she interrupted herself when she found me studying monuments.