Dictionary

arbitress en · NOUN

Etymology

From arbiter + -ess.

Meanings

1. A female arbiter.
   • […] my Colour came and went several times, with Indignation to hear our noble Country, the Mistress of Arts and Arms, the Scourge of France, the Arbitress of Europe, the Seat of Virtue, Piety, Honour and Truth, the Pride and Envy of the World, so contemptuously treated. 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Sent for to Court. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part II (A Voyage to Brobdingnag), pages 206–207:
   • […] while over head the Moon Sits Arbitress, and neerer to the Earth Wheels her pale course, they on thir mirth & dance Intent, with jocond Music charm his ear; 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 784-787:
   • Those who have not watched the united operation of vanity and feeling on a youthful mind, will not conceive how much less formidable the ridicule of all his own sex will be to a very young man, than that of those women to whom he has been taught to look up as the arbitresses of elegance. 1799, Hannah More, chapter 1, in Strictures on the Modern System of Education, volume 1, London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, page 25:
   • 1594, Samuel Daniel, The Tragedy of Cleopatra, Act III, in Delia and Rosamond augmented by Cleopatra, London: Simon Waterson, O Fearefull frowning NEMESIS, Daughter of IVSTICE, most seuere, That art the worlds great Arbitresse, And Queene of causes raigning heere.
   • On a stile in Haylane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I had no presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning that the arbitress of my life—my genius of good or evil—waited there in humble guise. 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter I, in Jane Eyre. […], volume III, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, pages 30-31:

Forms