auctrix

Learned borrowing from Latin auctrīx.

auctrix (plural not attested)

1. (medicine, archaic) A class of natural faculty.
   • 1826, “Article XII. – Retrospective Review. – Tractatus de Ventriculo et Intestinis, cui præmittitur alius…”, in The North American Medical and Surgical Journal, page 145:

     Under the class of natural faculties, we find three principal sorts; to wit, a facultas generatrix, an auctrix, and a nutrix.

• authrīx, autrīx

From augeō, auctum (“to increase, nourish”, verb) +‎ -trīx f (“-ess”, agentive suffix).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈau̯k.triːks]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈau̯k.t̪riks]

auctrīx f (genitive auctrīcis, masculine auctor); third declension

1. (Late Latin) a female originator
   • 211-212, Tertullian, De corona‎^[1], pages 4–5:

     Traditio tibi prætendetur auctrix, consuetudo confirmatrix, et fides observatrix.

     Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as their observer.

   • c. 400, Augustine of Hippo, In festo Assumptionis B. Mariæ‎^[2]:

     Auctrix peccati Eva ; auctrix meriti Maria. Eva occidendo obfuit ; Maria vivificando profuit. Illa percussit ; ista sanavit.

     Eve was the authoress of sin, Mary the authoress of merit. Eve injured us by giving death, Mary benefits us by giving life. The one wounded, the other healed.

   • 1175-1190, Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia‎^[3], page 110:

     Ave Maria, o auctrix vitae

     Hail Mary, originator of life

Third-declension noun.

• Italian: autrice
• Middle English: auctrice, auctrix
  • English: auctrix, authrix
• Middle French: actrixe, auctrice, auctrixe, authrice
  • French: autrice, auctrice
    • Dutch: autrice

• “auctrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• auctrix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.