Word Direct Answers

What does "mistress" mean?

Mistress: 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. Addison.

Additional senses

  1. 2.A woman regarded with love and devotion; she who has command over one's heart; a beloved object; a sweetheart. [Poetic] Clarendon.
  2. 3.A woman filling the place, but without the rights, of a wife; a concubine; a loose woman with whom one consorts habitually. Spectator.
  3. 4.A title of courtesy formerly prefixed to the name of a woman, married or unmarried, but now superseded by the contracted forms, Mrs., for a married, and Miss, for an unmarried, woman.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). Cowper.
  4. 5.A married woman; a wife. [Scot.] Several of the neighboring mistresses had assembled to witness the event of this memorable evening. Sir W. Scott.
  5. 6.The old name of the jack at bowls. Beau. & Fl. To be one's own mistress, to be exempt from control by another person.
  6. 7.To wait upon a mistress; to be courting. [Obs.] Donne.

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