MISTRESS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • 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A title of courtesy formerly prefixed to the name of a woman, married or unmarried, but now superseded by the contracted forms, Mrs., for a married, and Miss, for an unmarried, woman.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

... astonishment, her mistress hovered about while the strange dark man gobbled his food and glared upon her with his wild eyes. Still another stranger had come in with them; but this one wore the garments of civilization as ...

— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... something, and didn't choose to do any thing not in the original contract. She was a good domestic, and had lived with Mrs. Parker for some years. She had her humours, as every one has, but these had always been borne with by her mistress. Too many fretting incidents had just occurred, however, and Mrs. Parker's mind was not so evenly balanced as usual. Nancy's words and manner provoked her too far, and she replied, ...

— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... make prints of his first works, such as the drawing of the Innocents, a Last Supper, the Neptune, and the S. Cecilia being boiled in oil. Marc' Antonio afterwards made for Raffaello a number of other engravings, which Raffaello finally gave to Baviera, his assistant, who had charge of a mistress whom Raffaello loved to the day of his death. Of her he made a very beautiful portrait, wherein she seemed wholly alive: and this is now in Florence, in the possession of that most gentle of men, Matteo Botti, a Florentine ...

— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... sometimes as if they could not sit still, nor hinder themselves from making faces, and playing tricks; but that was the worst of them—they never told untruths, never did anything mean or unfair, and could always be made sorry when they had been in fault. Their old school-mistress liked them in spite of all the plague they gave her; and they liked her too, though she had tried upon them ...

— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge

... subjects which are banished from our discourse; at the same time that he would be much offended if any friend should in the presence of his females speak in raptures or poetical terms of the charms of a beloved mistress. ...

— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

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