Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a prostitute.

1582		Long Meg of Westminster 19: Meg being a Laundress in the town, raised the best of the women.
1604		Middleton Father Hubburd’s Tales VIII 92: The habit of a laundress shadows the abomination of a strumpet.
1611		Davies of Hereford Scourge of Folly 31/2: Flauus hath done his laundres now to death That oft (before) had done her out of breath.
1620		Middleton World Tost at Tennis 540: You have ’em white and honest as I had ’em, Look that your laundresses pollute ’em not.
1963		(con. 1870s) Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild 14: The names by which the frontiersmen referred to the ladies in question [...] laundress, dancehall girl.
2001		(con. late 19C) C. Jeffords Shady Ladies of the Old West 🌐 At Fort Russell, Wyo. Terr., in 1870, of the 24 so-called ‘laundresses,’ only five actually lived with soldier husbands, and of the rest, 17, aged 17–44, had children. [...] A sexually available laundress was paid in unspecified ‘goods and services.’.