laundress

From launderer +‎ -ess.

laundress (plural laundresses)

1. Synonym of washerwoman
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. The First Part , 2nd edition, part 1, London: Richard Iones, , published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:

     I tell thee ſhameleſſe girle,
     Thou ſhalt be Landreſſe to my waiting maide:

laundress (third-person singular simple present laundresses, present participle laundressing, simple past and past participle laundressed)

1. (obsolete, historical) To act as a laundress.
   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 26, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, , published 1850, →OCLC:

     ‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, ‘I’ve laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. […] ’

   • 1875, Mary Louisa Molesworth, “Too Bad”, in Tell Me a Story‎, 5th edition, London: Macmillan, published 1882, page 169:

     And oh, my dears, real washing is very different work from the dolls’ laundressing—standing round a wash-hand basin placed on a nursery chair, and wasting ever so much beautiful honey-soap in nice clean hot water […]

   • 2007, Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes (Someone Knows My Name), New York: Norton, Book Three, p. 260,

     Mama got herself free before she had me, and she was laundressing for the British since my early days.