Chieftess

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Synonym of chieftainess: a female chieftain or the wife of a chief.

    ""This heroine was ever after treated by her nation as their deliverer, and made a chieftess in her own right, with the liberty to entail the same honour on her descendants ..." New travels among the Indians of North America, William Fisher, ed., p. 294; attributed to Rev. J. Hubbard. http://books.google.com/books?id=xcIRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA294&dq=chieftess&hl=en&ei=lUkqTMDcDsL58AaetZ3SCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false"

Example

More examples

""This heroine was ever after treated by her nation as their deliverer, and made a chieftess in her own right, with the liberty to entail the same honour on her descendants ..." New travels among the Indians of North America, William Fisher, ed., p. 294; attributed to Rev. J. Hubbard. http://books.google.com/books?id=xcIRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA294&dq=chieftess&hl=en&ei=lUkqTMDcDsL58AaetZ3SCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false"

Etymology

An irregular form from chief or chieftain + -ess.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.