... Boadicea having appealed to her people, then addressed herself to a divinity:  "I thank thee, O Andraste, and call upon thee once more as a woman to a woman."  Having pointed out the difference between herself and other female rulers—Nitocris queen of the Egyptians, Semiramis queen of the Assyrians, Messalina and Agrippina, and Nero, who, she says, though he bore a man's name acted like a woman—Boadicea went on to say:  "I am queen of the manly Britons, who neither know how to till the ground nor carry on manufactures, but are skilled in accurate modes of fighting, and think it no harm to have all things in common, children and women as well.  For these reasons their women are as strong and warlike as their men, and it is as queen of such men and women that I pray to thee now and ask for victory and for safety and freedom from men who are violent, unjust, insatiable, and impious—if, forsooth, it is right to honour such persons with the name of men who are accustomed to wash themselves in warm water, to eat prepared dainties, to drink unmixed wine, to anoint themselves with myrrh, to sleep on beds of down, to lie with concubines no matter of what age, and are wholly given up to fiddling and such follies.  I certainly have no wish that I or you should be longer ruled over by Domitia the daughter of Nero, but let her slave-drive the Romans as she sings and plays... As for thee, O queen (Andraste), may you alone bear rule over us."...
... Dio-Xiphiline calls the goddess Andraste (Ἀνδράστη, also Ἀδράστη).  Accept an as a negative particle [drēstēs (δρηστης δραστησ) = runaway, αδραστος from διδρασχω] and the name Andraste Adraste might have been applied to the rabbit which did "not run away."...
... Celtic philologists have made out a connection between our goddess and somewhat similar names occurring in Celtic inscriptions, the nearest to which is Andarta of the country of the Vocontii, the modern Vaison, about twenty miles north of Avignon in the south of France.  Founded upon Indo-European etyma (Sanscrit dhars, Greek θρας θαρς, Gothic (ga)dars), seeing Andraste was asked to grant victory, the conclusion come to is that the name Andraste means "irresistible," "unconquerable," though if the Greek roots quoted are valid, and thras, thars mean "courage," Andraste should apparently mean "courageless." (Our Ancestors: Scots, Picts, and Cymry, Maclagan, 1913)