What does editress mean?
An editress is a woman who edits a publication — a magazine, journal, or other printed work — making decisions about what to include, revising contributions, and overseeing the text's preparation for print. The word is simply the feminine counterpart of 'editor', formed with the '-ess' ending once routinely added to agent nouns such as 'author', 'actor', and 'poet'. It saw steady use from the late eighteenth century onward, especially in reference to the many women who ran periodicals in Britain and America during the nineteenth century, when titles like 'editress of the Lady's Magazine' appeared regularly on title pages. In modern English the word has effectively dropped away: the gender-neutral 'editor' is now standard in every context, and 'editress' survives mainly in historical writing or deliberately old-fashioned prose. It remains useful to readers of older texts, where recognizing the term clarifies a woman's professional standing at a time when her sex was often marked explicitly in job titles.
nounA woman who edits a publication, text, or other work; the feminine form of editor.
- A woman who edits a newspaper, magazine, book, or other published work.
- (Historical) The female editor of a periodical, used especially when her role as a woman was noteworthy.
"The editress of the literary magazine reviewed each submission personally before it reached the printers."
"As editress of the monthly review, she shaped the tastes of an entire generation of readers."
"The letters were discovered among the papers of Sarah Hale, editress of Godey's Lady's Book."
The plural adds '-es'. It appears almost exclusively in historical or scholarly discussion of past publications.
"Several prominent editresses of Victorian periodicals corresponded with one another about submissions."
Before women could easily hold mainstream editorial titles, 'editress' gave them a name of their own on the masthead — a small word that quietly documented their presence in publishing.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of editress
Editress derives from 'editor', which entered English in the seventeenth century from Latin 'editor', meaning one who gives out or publishes, itself from 'edere', 'to give out, publish'. The feminine suffix '-ess' comes via Old French '-esse' from Latin '-issa', and was applied prolifically to English agent nouns from the Middle Ages onward. Combining the two produced 'editress' by the late eighteenth century, joining contemporaries such as 'authoress' and 'directress'; cognates of the same root include 'edition' and 'editorial'. Like most '-ess' coinages, it has since yielded to the neutral form.
Related word forms
How editress is actually used
'Editress' belongs to the class of feminine-agent nouns formed with the '-ess' suffix (like 'authoress' and 'poetess'). It was common from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries, particularly for women who edited periodicals, but like its siblings it has fallen out of favor and now sounds archaic or affected; 'editor' is preferred in all modern contexts.
Easily confused with editress
'Editor' is the standard gender-neutral term for anyone who edits, while 'editress' specifically denotes a woman and is now largely archaic.