Word.ws English Dictionary

patronesses

patronesses is the plural of patroness.

patronesses is the third-person singular simple present indicative of patroness.

Meaning of patroness

Noun

patroness (plural patronesses)

  1. A female patron goddess or saint.
    • And Night, the patronesse of love-stealth fayre, / Gave them safe conduct, till to end they came.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  2. (broadly, dated) A woman who sponsors or supports a given activity, person etc.; a female patron.
    • If I buy a ticket for a Flower Show, or a Music Show, or any sort of Show, and pay pretty heavy for it, why am I to be Patroned and Patronessed as if the Patrons and Patronesses treated me?1865, Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

See all 3 meanings of patroness

Questions about patronesses

What is patronesses the plural of?
Patronesses is the plural of patroness.

Words near patronesses in the dictionary

  1. patronate
  2. patrondom
  3. patroned
  4. patroness
  5. patronessed
  6. patronesses
  7. patronessing
  8. patroning
  9. patronisable
  10. patronisation
  11. patronisations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: patronesses (page history and authors); patroness (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: “patronesses.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/patronesses. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.