electress

noun

1. (dated, rare)A woman who can vote in an election.

   “I often wish I were, not a butterfly nor a bird—nothing so ridiculous—but an Electress!”

   “Free and independent electresses might object to be set in the forefront of the battle to shield their husbands and brothers from consabulary buckshot.”

   “To be an electress is the greatest honour imaginable; and to be the husband of an electress—why, it doubles a man's income at once.”

2. (historical)The wife of a German elector, often used as a title.

   “Nothing could equal the astonishment of both, on hearing the door open without their command, and seeing the electress enter, who was the person in the world they least expected, and to the duchess, perhaps, the least welcome.”

   “The Electress Magdalena Sybilla was a woman of character, virtuous, kind, conventional and managing.”

   “In July 1697 Electress Sophie had given an informal party for Peter which was attended only by her immediate family and the electresses of Brunswick and Hanover.”

   “On Sunday 13 June the electress attended mass at the Santo and visited the relics of the saint, on which occasion Guadagni sang, as usual, Vallotti's antiphon 'O linque benedicta'; in the evening she was entertained at an accademia di musica in the Giustinian palalace, where Guadagni is numbered among the performers; the following evening she heard him again in a performance of her own short opera, Il trionfo della fedeltà (first performed in Dresden, 1754) at the Palazzo Dondi Orologio.”