Word.ws English Dictionary

-esse

-esse is the alternative form of -ess.

Meaning of -ess

Suffix (1)

-ess (noun-forming suffix, plural -esses)

  1. Used to form female equivalents.
    • actor + -ess → actress
    Synonyms:
    -a, -ette, -ine, -ress, she-, -trix
    Antonyms:
    he-
  2. The wife of.
    • alderman + -ess → aldermaness (“alderman’s wife”)

Suffix (2)

-ess

  1. (idiomatic) Used to form nouns from adjectives.

Suffix (3)

-ess

  1. (idiomatic) Used to form proper nouns from nouns.

Words formed from -esse

Questions about -esse

What is -esse the alternative form of?
-esse is the alternative form of -ess.

Words near -esse in the dictionary

  1. -escing
  2. -ese
  3. -esis
  4. -esque
  5. -ess
  6. -esse
  7. -esses
  8. -est
  9. -estan
  10. -esthesia
  11. -esthesis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -esse (page history and authors); -ess (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “-esse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-esse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.