Dictionary

dictatress en · NOUN

Etymology

From dictator + -ess.

Meanings

1. A female dictator; a dictatorial state personified as female.
   • What Athens was in science, Rome in power, / What Tyre appeared in her meridian hour, / ’Tis thine at once, fair Albion, to have been, / Earth’s chief dictatress, ocean’s mighty queen: 1809, Lord Byron, English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, London: James Cawthorn, page 54:
   • 1980, William L. Andrews, The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt, cited in Thomas Votteler (ed.), Short Story Criticism, Farmington Hills, MI: Cengage Gale, Volume 7, 1991, p. 29, Wellington’s first wife does not belong among the overstuffed dictatresses of the white folks’ kitchen.
   • […] two things he promised her, and performed for her, which were tokens of a mercilesse heart, the balefull death of his son, and the chaunge of the state, in such sort that Aurelia Orestilla should be the Dictatresse of Rome. 1601, William Fulbecke, An Historicall Collection of the Continuall Factions, Tumults, and Massacres of the Romans and Italians, London: William Ponsonby, Book 1, Page 86:
   • “How about going for the Oscars? With a comedy. Or a drama. Or a tragicomedy. Let us make a new hybrid, for example, The Great African Dictatress.” 2018, Tsitsi Dangarembga, chapter 12, in This Mournable Body, Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press:
   • 1821, John Quincy Adams, address delivered on 4 July, 1821, cited in Antony Jay (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 4, America […] well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own […] she would involve herself beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue […] which assume the colours and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force […] She might become dictatress of the world.

Forms

Synonyms

dictatrix