MISTRESS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Mistress

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/mˈɪstrəs/ Listen

noun

Mistress n.

1.

A woman having power, authority, or ownership; a woman who exercises authority, is chief, etc.; the female head of a family, a school, etc. "The late queen's gentlewoman! a knight's daughter! To be her mistress' mistress!"

2.

A woman well skilled in anything, or having the mastery over it. "A letter desires all young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's Arithmetic."

3.

A woman regarded with love and devotion; she who has command over one's heart; a beloved object; a sweetheart. (Poetic)

4.

A woman filling the place, but without the rights, of a wife; a woman having an ongoing usually exclusive sexual relationship with a man, who may provide her with financial support in return; a concubine; a loose woman with whom one consorts habitually; as, both his wife and his mistress attended his funeral.

5.

A title of courtesy formerly prefixed to the name of a woman, married or unmarried, but now superseded by the contracted forms, Mrs., for a married, and Miss, for an unmarried, woman. "Now Mistress Gilpin (careful soul)."

6.

A married woman; a wife. (Scot.) "Several of the neighboring mistresses had assembled to witness the event of this memorable evening."

7.

The old name of the jack at bowls.

To be one's own mistress, to be exempt from control by another person.

verb

Mistress v. i. To wait upon a mistress; to be courting. (Obs.)

See images of 'Mistress'

Etymology of 'Mistress'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mistress" Quotes from Famous Books

... had lived nearly all her life with her mistress, was broken-hearted; but she did not forget to persuade Caroline to take food, telling her she must be ready to cheer up the master when he should come in, and assuring her that the throbbing headache which disgusted ...

— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Augustine. With her French passion for "the family" she used to wonder how in days like these Madame could endure to be far away from her son and daughter and the grandchildren, whose photographs hung on the walls; and the long letters her mistress was always writing in a beautiful, fine hand, beginning, "My darling Sybil," "My darling Reggie," and ending always "Your devoted mother," seemed to a warm and simple heart but meagre substitutes for flesh-and-blood ...

— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... [*Transcriber's Note: Mrs. (Mistress), in that age, was the normal style of address for an unmarried daughter from a prominent family, as well as ...

— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge

... HAVE SAID (3), THE QUALITY OF EARLY RISING be of the first importance to the mistress, what must it be to the servant! Let it, therefore, be taken as a long-proved truism, that without it, in every domestic, the effect of all things else, so far as work is concerned, may, in a great measure, be neutralized. In a cook, this quality is most essential; ...

— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... example. My brother must and shall marry according to his birth. I am assured that, contrary to my wishes and commands, he is about to make a secret and illegitimate marriage. I am not yet acquainted with the name of his wily mistress, but I shall learn it, and, when once noted in my memory, woe be unto her, for I shall never acknowledge such a marriage, and I shall take care that his mistress is not received at court—she shall be regarded as ...

— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

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