Word.ws English Dictionary

chieftainess

chieftainess noun: a female chieftain.

Noun

chieftainess (plural chieftainesses)

  1. A female chieftain.
    • He gazed in silence for some minutes upon the body of Meg Merrilies, as it lay before him, with the features sharpened by death, yet still retaining the stern and energetic character which had maintained in life her superiority as the wild chieftainess of the lawless people amongst whom she was...1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], “chapter ?”, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees...
    • Mrs. Douse was more important than Mr. Douse; she was a chieftainess in her own right, and had great dignity.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 20, in Klee Wyck
  2. The wife of a chieftain.

chieftainess meaning in Vietnamese

chieftainess in Vietnamese

a female chieftain
nữ tù trưởng

Synonyms of chieftainess

Forms of chieftainess

pluralchieftainesses

Origin of chieftainess

From chieftain + -ess. Middle English had an equivalent form cheventaynes but the OED asserts the term was derived anew in modern English in the 19th century. Piecewise doublet of captainess.

Questions about chieftainess

What does chieftainess mean?
Chieftainess means a female chieftain.
What is chieftainess in Vietnamese?
Chieftainess in Vietnamese is nữ tù trưởng. See Chieftainess meaning in Vietnamese.
What part of speech is chieftainess?
Chieftainess is a noun.
What is the plural of chieftainess?
The plural of chieftainess is chieftainesses.

Words near chieftainess in the dictionary

  1. chieftain
  2. chieftaincies
  3. chieftaincy
  4. chieftaindom
  5. chieftaindoms
  6. chieftainess
  7. chieftainesses
  8. chieftainly
  9. chieftainries
  10. chieftainry
  11. chieftains

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chieftainess (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.

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