Abbesses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A female leader or head nun of a convent or monastery, overseeing religious duties and community matters
2. The title used for a woman who governs a group of nuns and is responsible for their spiritual and administrative needs
3. A woman in a position of authority within a religious community, typically guiding and caring for her fellow sisters in accordance with monastic rules

Etymology: The most striking thing about "abbess" is that its root word means "father." It comes from the Aramaic "abba," a child's word for a father, which passed into Greek as "abbas" and then into Latin as "abbas," meaning abbot, the male head of a monastery. Early Christian communities borrowed the Aramaic term for their spiritual fathers, so a word from a family nursery ended up naming the leaders of religious houses. The feminine form came from the Latin suffix "-issa," which was added to "abbas" to create "abbatissa," the female counterpart. This was a Late Latin or Ecclesiastical Latin formation, and it passed through Old French as "abeesse" before English took it up as "abbesse" in Middle English. The plural "abbesses" is simply the regular plural of "abbess," formed by adding "-es" after the "s" sound, and it names more than one woman who leads a community of nuns.