Word origin
[1720–30; ‹ NL, equiv. to L
trac-, var. s. of
trahere to draw, pull +
-trīx -trix]This word is first recorded in the period 1720–30. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: catchword, joker, personify, saloon, syllabic-trix is a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, where it formed feminine nouns oradjectives corresponding to agent nouns ending in -tor (Bellatrix). On this model, -trix is used in English to form feminine nouns (aviatrix; executrix) and geometrical terms denoting straight lines (directrix)