Mistress

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈmɪstɹɪs/

Definitions

1. A woman who manages a household or estate ; a woman engaged in a romantic relationship with a married man ; a female teacher or a woman in charge of a group or institution
2. The female owner or supervisor of a house or property ; a woman involved romantically with a married partner ; a woman who instructs or leads others in an educational or authoritative role
3. A woman who governs or presides over an establishment ; a woman maintaining a secret or ongoing affair with a married man ; a female educator or a person wielding control in a setting

Etymology: The female form of "master" has a surprisingly tangled path. Its ancestor, Latin "magister", meant a leader or teacher, and it entered Old French as "maistre". Adding a feminine ending gave "maistresse", which passed into Middle English as "maistresse" and eventually narrowed to "mistress" in modern spelling. The "mist(e)r" in the word looks like "mister" with "-ess" attached, but that resemblance is only surface analysis: the first part comes from "master", not "mister". The word first described a woman in authority rather than a sexual partner. A mistress could run a household, lead a school, or hold power over servants, and those senses remain the oldest. The romantic meaning, a woman in an affair with a married man, developed later and is now the one most people hear first, even though it is only one strand of a word that once simply meant a woman who was in charge.

Synonyms: lover, paramour, concubine, girlfriend, female companion

Antonyms: master, husband, partner, spouse, male counterpart