Proper noun

1. , feminine form of Francis.

Quotations

• c.1590 William Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost: Act III, Scene I:

  Armado. Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.

  Costard. O! marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy, some goose, in this.

• 1883 Wilkie Collins, Heart and Science, Chatto and Windus, page 227:

  "My name is Frances. Don't call me Fanny!" "Why not?" "Because it's too absurd to be endured! What does the mere sound of Fanny suggest? A flirting dancing creature - plump and fair, and playful and pretty! - - - Call me Frances - a man's name, with only the difference between an i and an e. No sentiment in it, hard, like me."

• 1961 Janet Frame, Owls Do Cry, ISBN 072510029X, page 97:

  My other sisters had interesting names. There was Francie, that was Frances, and though she wore slacks and my father seemed angry with her, I thought she was some relation to Saint Francis, who, I believed, kept animals in his pocket and took them out and licked them, the way Francie licked a blackball or acid drop, for pure love.

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