As a child, I read LM Montgomery’s book “Emily of New Moon”, and Emily says she wants to be a poetess. Later, I told my father I wanted to be a poetess, and he laughed at me and said there was no such word - it’s poet, no matter what sex you are. Reading “Emily…” again when I was older, I noted that her spelling sucked and poetess was probably inserted to show that she (ironically?) wanted to be a wordsmith but didn’t quite have the hang of them yet.
Today, I saw the word poetess used in an online article. I smiled smugly, then second guessed myself and looked it up at Dictionary.com. Surprise! It’s listed there.
My question to you - is poetess a real, accepted (albeit politically incorrect) word and did my all-seeing, all-knowing father make a mistake, or is it one of those dodgy words, listed because it does get used but belonging to the realm of people who don’t know any better making a word up and insisting that it is correct?
According to http://www.m-w.com it is a word, if that’s good enough for you.
Of late, most of those -ess formations have been in disfavor, from my observations. I’ve noticed that even one of the most common forms, actress, is being used less and less.
Well, the M-W link dated it to 1530, so I would guess that it is “real” enough.
One issue regarding the -ess ending is that it frequently appears in a condescending or derisive context. Long before PC became the rage (or encouraged rage), Jewess and Negress had been deemed insulting and dropped in nearly all contexts. (Note that English did not have a word Italianess, Germaness, or Scotess; people getting the -ess ending tended to be not highly respected–a point not separate from actress or waitress, two trades that were not esteemed.)
A search for period references to Elizabeth Barrett Browning or Emily Dickinson might turn up whether they were known by the word poet or poetess.
