Word.ws English Dictionary

Griselda

Griselda proper noun: the long-suffering wife of a nobleman in a medieval tale.

Proper noun

Griselda

  1. The long-suffering wife of a nobleman in a medieval tale.
  2. A female given name from the Germanic languages used in Middle Ages, but rather rare today.

Noun

Griselda (plural Griseldas)

  1. A woman of exemplary gentleness and patience.
    • Husbands, be not so hardy as to assail
      The patience of your wives in hope to find
      Griseldas, for you certainly will fail.1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, “Chaucer's Envoy to the Clerk's Tale”, in Nevill Coghill, transl., The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977

Forms of Griselda

Proper noun
alternative formGrissel
alternative formGrizel
alternative formGrizzel
Noun
pluralGriseldas

Origin of Griselda

From the Old English elements *grīs (“gray”) + hild (“battle”), meaning “gray battle-maid”.

Words formed from Griselda

Questions about Griselda

What does Griselda mean?
Griselda means the long-suffering wife of a nobleman in a medieval tale.
What part of speech is Griselda?
Griselda can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near Griselda in the dictionary

  1. Griscelli syndrome
  2. Grischa
  3. grischunite
  4. grise
  5. Grisel's syndrome
  6. Griselda
  7. Griseldas
  8. griseldy
  9. griselimycin
  10. griselimycins
  11. griselmycin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Griselda (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: “Griselda.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/griselda. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.