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-ess

suffix
/ɛs/

Etymology

From Middle English -eis, a borrowing from Old French -eis, a locative suffix descended from Latin -ensis. The French and Middle English suffixes created nouns describing a freeman of a fortified town, but in Modern English this is found only in proper nouns, particularly in certain surnames. Cognates include Italian -ese, and English English -ese is a doublet.

  1. derived from -ισσα
  2. derived from -issa
  3. derived from -esse
  4. inherited from -esse

Definitions

  1. Used to form female equivalents.

    • actor + -ess → actress
    • chanter + -ess → chantress
    • duke + -ess → duchess (“female ruler of a duchy”)

  2. The wife of.

    • alderman + -ess → aldermaness (“alderman’s wife”)
    • duke + -ess → duchess (“duke’s wife”)
    • mayor + -ess → mayoress (“mayor’s wife”)

  3. Used to form nouns from adjectives.

  4. ›+ 1 more definition

    1. Used to form proper nouns from nouns.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for -ess. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA