Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a brothel-keeper, a madame, ‘of the highflyer sort’ (Bee).

[1668		‘P.R.’ Whores Dialogue 6: A reverend Matron of our profession whom the vulgar do Icleap a Bawd].
1671		‘Upon the Beadle’ in Lord Poems on Affairs of State (1968) I 175: The Cyprian convent they attempt by storm, Which held out [...] Though kept but by the abbess and one maid.
1683		Whores Rhetorick 128: The lady Abbess took leave of her young Probationer.
1691		‘On Good Canary’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 179: Though an Abbesse he court / In his high shoes he’ll have her.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 270: The Lady-Abbess of the Brothel-Monastry never wanting among the Salacious Quality of her old Acquaintance [...] Ready-money Chapmen for any of her Punchable Nuns.
1732		Johnson Caelia III i: This is our College, Madam; and these are the students: or rather, Madam, this is a Nunnery, and I am Lady Abbess.
1748–49		Cleland Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1985) 24: Who should come in but the venerable mother Abbess herself!
1759		‘Hot Stuff’ in Silber Songs of Indep. (1973) 146: If you please, Madam Abbess, a word with your nuns! / Each soldier shall enter the convent in buff, / And then, never fear, we will give them Hot Stuff!
1770		Foote Lame Lover in Works (1799) II 60: Who should trip by but an abbess, well known about town, with a smart little nun.
1779		Nocturnal Revels I Dedication: The treachery, perfidy, and stratagems of what are stiled Lady Abbesses, are depicted in their genuine colours.
1779		Nocturnal Revels I 26: A most implicit faith in the Mother Abbess, whose decrees were irrevocable.
1786		Nunnery Amusements 23: My Lady Abbess too is not forgot, / For oft they enter her salacious spot.
1787		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 37: She has assiduously avoided any connection with the mother abbesses, and trades entirely on her own bottom.
1788		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Odes to the Pope’ Works (1794) III 366: So an old Abbess, for the rattling rakes, A tempting dish of human nature makes, And dresses up a luscious maid.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: Abbess or LADY ABBESS, a bawd, the mistress of a brothel.
1793		Sporting Mag. Aug. II 307/2: Mother Johnson, the King’s-place abbess, and one of the most notorious purveyors of that celebrated flesh-market.
1800		Sporting Mag. Mar. XV 317/1: Mrs. Johnston, the Jermyn St. abbess, died in the beginnng of March [...] which occasioned much confusion among her fair inmates.
1800		Sporting Mag. Oct. XVII 41/1: The Lady Abbess shews her well-drawn plan, / And tells each pupil how to know her man.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Mother [...] a bawd; mother abbess, the same.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 48: A celebrated abbess named Peg Plunkett with a few of her nymphs.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 204: So an old abbess, for rattling rakes, / A tempting dish of human nature makes, / And dresses up a luscious maid: / I rather should have said, indeed, undresses.
c.1830		‘A Sporting Surgeon’ Waterfordiana 6: The revels, which consist of chaunting and chaffing, are under the direction of the ‘Lady Abbess,’ Mrs. J., and her lovely daughter Rachael.
1833		‘The Blowing’s Catalogue’ in Funny Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 45: Mother Cummins [...] ‘Cock of the walk’, as abbess lived, / In Dyott Street for years.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1837		W. Kidd London and all its Dangers 36: Lady Abbesses [...] the Infernal wretches who traffic in the souls and bodies of their helpless victims.
1841		Sun. Flash (NY) 19 Sept. n.p.: Louisa established herself in the house at No. 35 Warren srteet, as a Lady Abbess.
1844		New Sprees of London 28: [I]t will be seen that the women are seldom—indeed, we may say never, out of the debt and power of the old abbesses.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 5 Dec. 1/2: It was not long e’er our hero was joined by the frail trio, who inhabit a respectable mansion hard by the inn, bearing the venerable and virtuous cognomen of ‘Beddek’s Nunnery,’ over which the blooming Mrs. Griffiths presides as the Lady Abbess.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 335: Gibcat, She-dog, Mother-abbess.
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 39 154/3: The Lady Abbess of St Giles’s, Mother Cummins, began life as a street-walker .
1855		Bell’s Life in Sydney 13 Oct. 2/7: A neighbour, familiarly known as the ‘Lady Abbess,’ paid Nelly a morning call.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) VI 1200: The Abbess of this open-thighed nunnery spoke bad French, but enough for me.
1936		B. Stuart Adventure in Algeria 49: The ‘disengaged’ ladies kept together at one corner of the bar, and one had to go to the Mother Abbess to pay one’s money before taking one’s choice.