Definition of "adventuress" []

• A woman who seeks social and financial advancement by unscrupulous means. See Usage Note at -ess. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Despite her aloofness, Mrs. Grant did now and then steal a glance at Mrs. Pope to see if this brazen creature [526] would betray in any manner the fact that she was sleeping with the senator, but the adventuress was a wily one who disclosed nothing."
• ""Hum -- maybe my adventuress was the same person in disguise," Mr. Palmer thoughtfully observed."
• "Meanwhile, Irene Adler has been running around as the kind of adventuress I thought "adventuress" meant when I was a little kid reading the first few paragraphs of "A Scandal in Bohemia"."