acrobatess

noun

1. (rare)A female acrobat.

   ““T l k’s? true lover’s knots! none of my business, of course, but the professor appears to be interested in the fair acrobat—acrobatess—acrobatia—what you will! Give you my word, when he came round the corner and saw her coming down that rope, I thought he would curl up into knots himself. Jolly stunt! when I first came I was awfully afraid—” Gerald pulled himself up suddenly, and blushed scarlet.”

   “Many persons were interested in the antics of a well-dressed brunette on the Bowery last night. She was leaping awkwardly over small obstructions, essaying somersaults, and anon playing the game of tag with herself. / It was thought by some that she was a real acrobatess a little under the weather. / A policeman arrived at the height of her fun, and inquired what she was doing.”

   “What I’m going to say is, they think I’m a peasant or something. Imagine a peasant at second-base for the Cardinals! But that’s not the big thing. The big thing is she doesn’t want to be an acrobat or an acrobatess or whatever you call them. She can’t be. She’s ticklish.”

   “So far only two or three of Shaw’s manly women have been recognizable human beings; the rest have been burlesques. Lina Szczepanowska, the Polish acrobatess who steps calmly out of the wreckage of John Tarleton’s glass pavilion and Joey’s Percival’s aeroplane in Misalliance, falls somewhere in between, but Shaw’s conception of her is basically serious.”