Goddesses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Female divine beings worshipped or revered in different religious traditions or mythologies
2. Women regarded as godlike figures or supernatural entities in cultural stories and beliefs
3. Supernatural female figures considered sacred and powerful in various spiritual or mythological contexts

Etymology: "Goddesses" is simply the plural of "goddess," so its history is really the history of that base word. Old English had a word for a female deity, "gyden," but it was displaced in Middle English by "goddesse," which took shape around 1350. That form is built from "god" plus the feminine suffix "-ess," a pattern English borrowed from Old French and used for many female counterparts of male nouns, such as "lioness" and "actress." The most striking shift came in 1579, when Edmund Spenser used the word figuratively in his "Shepheardes Calender." Before that, "goddess" referred to a literal divinity; Spenser's use opened the door to applying it to a beautiful or admired woman, a sense that flourished in later poetry.

Synonyms: deities, divinities, gods, immortals, spirits