Word.ws English Dictionary

mistress

/ˈmɪs.tɹɪs/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

South Asia/ˈmɪs.ʈrɪs/

mistress noun: a woman, specifically one with great control, authority or ownership. Also the female equivalent of master.

Noun (1)

mistress (plural mistresses)

  1. A woman, specifically one with great control, authority or ownership.
    • She was the mistress of the estate-mansion, and owned the horses.
    • At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood waiting for his mistress, and he gave her strips of bass to tie up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with knuckly old fingers that shook.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXXIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 307
    Synonyms:
    boss, head, leader
  2. A female head of household.
    • In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her Mistress.1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Two. The First of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 59
  3. A female teacher.
    • games mistress
    Synonyms:
    schoolmarm
  4. The other woman in an extramarital relationship, generally including sexual relations.
    • “But soon his wrath being o’er, he took / “Another mistress, or new book:1819, Lord Byron, Mazeppa, a Poem, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 11
    • Count Krivtsov was considered a hopeless case by everyone, and yet he kept two mistresses.1901 [1878], chapter 20, in Constance Garnett, transl., Anna Karenina, translation of Анна Каренина (Anna Karenina) by Leo Tolstoy, part 7
    Synonyms:
    bit on the side, fancy woman, comaré, goomah
  5. A dominatrix.
    • As part of BDSM play they can enhance the domineering tread of a mistress or hobble the steps of a slave.2006, Amelia May Kingston, The Triumph of Hope, page 376
  6. 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.1711 June 25 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “THURSDAY, June 15, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 92; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New...
  7. A woman regarded with love and devotion; a sweetheart.
    • he could not forbear putting his horse out of the way , and rode with his mistress behind him round about it1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed...
  8. (Scotland) A married woman; a wife.
    • Several of the neighbouring mistresses […] had assembled to witness the event of this memorable evening.1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown...
  9. (archaic) A respectful mode of address to a woman.
  10. (obsolete) The jack in the game of bowls.
    • Faith, keep a bachelor still, and go to bowls, sir, Follow your mistress there, and prick and save, sir; For other mistresses will make you a slave, sirc. 1613, Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, “Wit at Several Weapons. A Comedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC...
    • She took a bowl, drew up her skirt with her left hand, and rolled the weighted ball with a deft motion. It lightly kissed the mistress and stopped a few inches away.2001, Paul Hemenway Altrocchi, Most Greatly Lived
  11. A female companion to a master (a man with control, authority or ownership).

Verb

mistress (third-person singular simple present mistresses, present participle mistressing, simple past and past participle mistressed)

  1. (rare, transitive) Of a woman: to master; to learn or develop to a high degree of proficiency.
    • These films give a glimpse of women on the way to mistressing their own destiny.2013, Andrea Khalil, North African Cinema in a Global Context: Through the Lens of Diaspora
  2. (intransitive) To act or take the role of a mistress.
    • […] housewifery, maternity, charity, the life conventual, the chatter of a court, the mistressing of a great house […]1905, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, Maid Margaret of Galloway

Noun (2) capitalized: Mistress

Mistress (plural Mistresses)

  1. (archaic) Used as the title of a married woman before her name. Now used only in the abbreviated form Mrs.
    • The sound of Mistress Affery cautiously chaining the door before she opened it, caused them both to look that way.1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, “The Dreams of Mrs. Flintwinch Thicken”, in Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC, 2nd book (Riches), page 408
    • Mistress Cordelia Carfax shivered and gathered her silk shawl about her shoulders. […] Any shows of affection Mistress Carfax did display were usually reserved for her pedigree pug.2014, Tessa Harris, chapter 5, in The Lazarus Curse (A Dr. Thomas Silkstone Mystery; 4), New York, N.Y.: Kensington Books, →ISBN, page 25
  2. Used as the title of a female dominant.

Also used as

mistress is also the female equivalent of master.

mistress is also the female equivalent of mister.

mistress meaning in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Tagalog

mistress in Hindi

female teacher
अध्यापिका Adhyapika, शिक्षिका śikṣikā
woman in extramarital relationship
रखैल rakhail, उपपत्नी uppatnī

mistress in Telugu

woman in extramarital relationship
ఉంపుడుకత్తె umpuḍukatte, ఉంపుడుగత్తె umpuḍugatte, సెకండ్ సెటప్ sekaṇḍ seṭap

mistress in Kannada

woman in extramarital relationship
ಸೆಕೆಂಡ್ ಸೆಟಪ್ sekeṇḍ seṭap

mistress in Tagalog

woman in extramarital relationship
kabit, kerida
More languagesFewer languages
mistress in Arabic
سَيِّدَة sayyida, خَلِيلَة ḵalīla, عَشِيقَة ʕašīqa
mistress in Indonesian
gundik
mistress in Persian
بانو bânu, شهبانو šahbânu, معشوقه ma'šuqa, عاشق 'âšeq
mistress in Thai
คุณนาย kun-naai, นายหญิง, นาง naang, เมียน้อย miia-nɔ́ɔi
mistress in Vietnamese
người yêu

Examples of mistress in a sentence

  • He kept a mistress for over ten years.
  • Mistress Desiree removed the ball crusher and then selected the humbler.
  • Surely a judge would not take his mistress on circuit with him?

All 40 example sentences with mistress

Synonyms of mistress

13 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of mistress

Forms of mistress

Noun
pluralmistresses
pluralMistresses
alternative form (obsolete)mistris
Verb
third-person singular presentmistresses
present participlemistressing
past participlemistressed
pastmistressed

Plural of mistress: mistresses

Origin of mistress

From Middle English maistresse, from Old French maistresse (whence French maîtresse), feminine of maistre (“master”). By surface analysis, mist(e)r + -ess.

Words formed from mistress

Phrases with mistress

Questions about mistress

What does mistress mean?
Mistress means a woman, specifically one with great control, authority or ownership.
What is mistress in Hindi?
Mistress in Hindi is अध्यापिका (Adhyapika), शिक्षिका (śikṣikā), रखैल (rakhail). See Mistress meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is mistress?
Mistress can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce mistress?
Mistress is pronounced /ˈmɪs.tɹɪs/.
What is the plural of mistress?
The plural of mistress is mistresses.

Words near mistress in the dictionary

  1. mistreaters
  2. mistreating
  3. mistreatment
  4. mistreatments
  5. mistreats
  6. mistress
  7. mistress of ceremonies
  8. mistress of the robes
  9. Mistress Santa Claus
  10. mistress-ship
  11. mistress-ships

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mistress (page history and authors); Mistress (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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Cite this entry: “mistress.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mistress. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.