bluestocking -
A scholarly, literary, or cultured woman.
Wikipedia
The term bluestocking (or bluestockinger) refers most commonly to members of the Blue Stockings Society - a literary society led by Elizabeth Montagu and others in the 1750s in England. This society was originally founded by women, and included many prominent members of English society, both male and female. Examples of other members included Samuel Johnson ("arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history"), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (described as the "most interesting Englishwoman of the century"), Frances and Wm Pulteney, Edmund Burke, Henrietta Bowdler, and novelist Sarah Fielding.
