sapphist

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sap·phic

 (săf′ĭk)
adj.
Of or relating to lesbianism.
[After Sappho, known for her homoerotic poetry.]
sap′phism (săf′ĭz′əm) adj.
sap′phist n. & adj.

Sap·phic

 (săf′ĭk)
adj.
1. Of or relating to the Greek poet Sappho.
2.
a. Of, relating to, or being a verse characteristic of Sappho, containing 11 syllables and consisting of a trochee, a spondee or trochee, a dactyl, a trochee, and a spondee or trochee.
b. Relating to or being a stanza of three such verses followed by a verse consisting of a dactyl followed by a spondee or trochee.
c. Relating to or being an ode made up of such stanzas.
d. Of, relating to, or being a verse, stanza, or poem in accentual-syllabic meter composed in imitation of Sapphic quantitative verse.
n.
A Sapphic meter, verse, stanza, or ode.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sapphist

(ˈsæfɪst)
n
a lesbian
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
References in periodicals archive
The term invert came into public awareness along with other such 'Sapphist', 'lesbian' and 'homosexual'.
Citizen, Invert, Queer: Lesbianism and War in Early Twentieth Century Britain
A French citizen by birth, Albertine is a hybrid creature raised in Austria and infused with its culture, which renders her sexually suspect precisely because of her connections to Germanic culture and to a "professional Sapphist."33 She admits that she spent the happiest days of her life with her "big sister" Mile Vinteuil's lover, in Trieste where she will now travel to spend her Christmas holidays.
Albertine and the inverted mirrors: reflections of geographic and ethnic otherness
If you have a weak heart or just a short attention span, keep your distance from Emma Donoghue's intricately woven and luxuriously paced fourth novel, Life Mask, the story of the 12th Earl of Derby's 16-year courtship of the comedic actress Eliza Farren and of Eliza's ambiguous and socially dangerous friendship with the sculptor Anne Damer, rumored to be a sapphist. These are real figures from the London beau monde of the 18th century.
Passions past: acclaimed Irish novelist Emma Donoghue spins a world of pansexual intrigue in 18th-century London
For instance, Woolf was so anxious about the reception of A Room that she fretted in her diary: "I shall be attacked for a feminist and hinted at for a sapphist" (Diary, 23 Oct.
Orlando's sister, or Sally Potter does Virginia Woolf in a voice of her own
Soon after meeting Vita, Woolf was intrigued by this leggy aristocrat who, she had heard, was a pronounced Sapphist and who wanted to seduce her.
Review: Capturing unity of two women; Vita and Virginia Warwick Arts Centre
Oxindine points out that as late as 1930 Woolf felt that she must "slip in" what she wants to say in her own novel ("Sapphist" 4-5, citing Woolf, Diary 3:298).
"My Boldness Terrifies Me": sexual abuse and female subjectivity in The Voyage Out
The Sapphist overtones of the location are scarcely concealed.
The significance of Constantinople in 'Orlando.' (Virginia Woolf's novel)
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