adulteress
noun
adul·ter·ess
ə-ˈdəl-t(ə-)rəs 
variants
or less commonly adultress
: a woman who commits adultery
Examples of adulteress in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Rembrandt’s The Woman Taken in Adultery (1644) tells the story of how Jesus’s compliance with Jewish law was put to the test by a council of Pharisees (members of a biblical Jewish sect that was fanatical about obeying religious laws), who bring an adulteress before him.
—
Smithsonian Magazine, 29 July 2025
Klytemnestra is no longer a power-hungry adulteress but a generic grieving mother.
—James Frankie Thomas, Vulture, 27 July 2022
In any case, whether Mary Ellen is seen as the flighty adulteress who deservedly dies a sad early death or as the unfortunate source of Meredith’s creative invention, the woman herself, in all her complexity, seems to disappear.
—Hermione Lee, The New York Review of Books, 3 Dec. 2020
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Smithsonian Magazine, 29 July 2025
Klytemnestra is no longer a power-hungry adulteress but a generic grieving mother.
—James Frankie Thomas, Vulture, 27 July 2022
In any case, whether Mary Ellen is seen as the flighty adulteress who deservedly dies a sad early death or as the unfortunate source of Meredith’s creative invention, the woman herself, in all her complexity, seems to disappear.
—Hermione Lee, The New York Review of Books, 3 Dec. 2020
Cite this Entry
“Adulteress.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adulteress. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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