Library / English Dictionary

MISTRESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A woman master who directs the work of others

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("mistress" is a kind of...):

employer (a person or firm that employs workers)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mistress"):

chatelaine (the mistress of a chateau or large country house)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An adulterous woman; a woman who has an ongoing extramarital sexual relationship with a man

Synonyms:

fancy woman; kept woman; mistress

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("mistress" is a kind of...):

lover (a significant other to whom you are not related by marriage)

adult female; woman (an adult female person (as opposed to a man))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mistress"):

concubine; courtesan; doxy; paramour (a woman who cohabits with an important man)

Instance hyponyms:

Braun; Eva Braun (the German mistress of Adolf Hitler (1910-1945))

Delilah ((Old Testament) the Philistine mistress of Samson who betrayed him by cutting off his hair and so deprived him of his strength)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A woman schoolteacher (especially one regarded as strict)

Synonyms:

mistress; schoolma'am; schoolmarm; schoolmistress

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("mistress" is a kind of...):

school teacher; schoolteacher (a teacher in a school below the college level)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Soon after my mistress came into the room, who seeing me all bloody, ran and took me up in her hand.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I heard him call my mistress a name, and I told him that he would not dare to speak so if her brother had been there.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Indeed! My mistress told me that you were likely to call.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It could scarcely be called a happening, when, at the age of twenty-five, she accompanied her mistress on a bit of travel to the United States.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

These with their master and mistress were the sole occupants of Lachine, for the Barclays had no children, nor was it usual for them to have resident visitors.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I should be very glad to get her so good a mistress.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

A new neighbour for us all, Miss Woodhouse! said Miss Bates, joyfully; my mother is so pleased!—she says she cannot bear to have the poor old Vicarage without a mistress.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

They were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

But the old man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour to my friend, who, when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country, nor returned until he heard that his former mistress was married according to her inclinations.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be lonely till laid to eternal rest....

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)