priestess

Etymology

From priest + -ess. Compare Middle English preesteresse (“priestess”).

noun

1. A woman with religious duties and responsibilities in certain non-Christian religions.
   Sir Knight, said she (whose looks, language, and gesture create strange thoughts within me) be pleased to know, that I am (I will not say the first) of those Ladies of Honour, who wait upon the high-born, illustrious, and refulgent Maulkina, Daughter to the high and mighty Prince Paraclet, Prince of No-Land, on the confines of whose Territories we now are, so it is that the Divine Maulkina having been a vowed Votaress to Diana (whose Priestess she was, and whose Oracles she exhibited) upon a night as she sat at the feet of the Image of that chaste Deity […] 1656, Samuel Holland, Don Zara Del Fogo, London, retrieved 2019-11-24, page 118
   Among the Northern tribes also the woman was held in all moral aspects the equal of man. Alike the blue-eyed wife of the Barbarian and the proud Roman matron were, as the bearers and breeders of the race, the equals of the fighters and rulers of the race. The importance of their functions was fully recognized and respected, and the priestess at the sylvan altar, the vestals serving the fires and the temples at Rome were held worthy to speak face to face with the gods and convey their blessings to man. 1894 June, Elizabeth Bisland, “The Cry of the Women”, in The North American Review, volume 158, number 451, →ISSN, →JSTOR, retrieved 2019-11-24, page 758
2. (religious slur, uncommon) A female Christian priest or minister, typically in a Protestant, Old Catholic, or independent Catholic denomination.
   The “extenuating circumstances” set forth by the Rev. Mr. Higgins certainly bring home not only the nature of Bishop Hall's problem but its cause; however, the problems of parish life under a deaconess are insignificant in comparison with the very grave issues raised by the ordination of a priestess. 19 November 1944, “Letters”, in The Living Church, volume 109, number 21, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Morehouse-Gorham Co., page 2
   The churches have enjoyed excellent ecumenical relations, he said, and he will continue to work with Anglicans as he does with Jews, Moslems, Catholics and other religious groups, but he added firmly that “there can never be intercommunion with the Anglican church if it has women priestesses.”[…] “Imagine the problems women priestesses would create with pregnancies and things like that.” 10 July 1976, Aubrey Wice, “Anglican, Greek Orthodox Doctrines at Odds: Women Priests Create Rift Between Churches”, in The Globe and Mail, Toronto, →ISSN, page 36
   He has cleverly figured out that the deluded pro-priestess faction of the church already has its necessary two-thirds majority and that the time to act is now. 25 June 1986, John Fraser, “Dust-up Over Women Will Enliven Anglican Synod”, in The Globe and Mail, Toronto, →ISSN, page A7
   THE Church of England is considering taking legal action against a recalcitrant opponent of women priests in Hull who refuses to take down a church sign which says: "This Anglican parish has no part in the apostasy of priestesses." 15 July 1996, Madeleine Bunting, “Priest Defends 'Sexist' Sign”, in The Guardian, London, →ISSN, page 6
   In 1976 [the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA)] formally ratified and accepted the irregular ordination of several priestesses, which had been carried out by a few individual bishops acting without formal approval […] Less than two decades after the creation of priestesses by ECUSA, the Anglican Church in England (sort of a first among equals in the worldwide Anglican Communion) debated and “studied” the issue, formally approving the practice in the early 1990s. […]As “gateway drugs” such as marijuana often introduce youth to even more menacing substances, so the sexual confusion of priestesses opens the doors to sodomy. 2003 December, Larry A. Carstens, “The Non Serviam of the Episcopal Church: Unsex Me!”, in New Oxford Review, volume 70, number 11, →ISSN, pages 33–34
3. (colloquial, obsolete) A priest’s wife.
   As ſoon as they were parted, the Prieſteſs flounced out of the Houſe, call'd for her Coachman, and bid him put in his Horſes, for away would ſhe go […] 1709, Delarivier Manley, Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality, of Both Sexes, from the New Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean, 2nd edition, London, →OCLC, page 158

verb

1. (transitive) To oversee (a pagan ceremony, etc.) as priestess.
   Ye Ye Ife, a gifted feminist ritualist and priestess of Oshun from San Diego, trained in the Yoruba tradition, designed and priestessed the ritual with me. 1998, Wendy Hunter Roberts, Celebrating Her: Feminist Ritualizing Comes of Age, page 124
   Priestessing the earth is for me personally the only natural response to the awe and deep love this evokes in me. 2014, Danu Forest, Celtic Tree Magic: Ogham Lore and Druid Mysteries
   I priestessed the ceremony. I played Hecate. One time I played Demeter and my daughter played Persephone. 2014, John C. Sulak, Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, Oberon Zell, The Wizard and the Witch: Seven Decades of Counterculture, Magick & Paganism