shepherdess
/ˌʃɛpəˈdɛs
/ /ˈʃɛpədəs /noun
1A female shepherd.The people we met were like the cast from an old faery tale: bearded woodcutters sat chatting in clearings of the forest; cowherds and shepherdesses wandered past with their flocks, shy and silent....
- In the US, however, the European pastoral ideal, rooted in Virgil's bucolic visions of an unchanging Arcadia of shepherds and shepherdesses, has been transmuted by the capitalistic impetus.
- Robin Hood invites the shepherds and shepherdesses of the Vale of Belvoir to a feast in Sherwood Forest, but the feast is marred by the arts of the witch Maudlin, aided by her familiar, Puck-Hairy.
1.1An idealized or romanticized rustic young woman in pastoral literature.The funniest was of Phoebe, the young shepherdess who had fallen in love with Rosalind in her male guise....
- The most important subjects are pastoral scenes of shepherdesses, landscapes, and animals; historical, literary and romantic themes; and themes inspired by antiquity.
- Boucher's cupidons bear the family traits of their elder sisters, Boucher's nymphs and shepherdesses: a plump litheness; long-lashed wide ingenuous eyes; small light-tipped noses.