Duenna
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A chaperon of a young lady, usually an older woman.
"'Madam, I have a secret to tell you.' Now the very word secret is enough to rouse any one's curiosity; and, giving a quick glance round to see if her duennas were on the alert, she prepared to listen, and I saw that her eye had caught sight of the letter."
- 2 a woman chaperon wordnet
- 3 A governess or nanny.
Example
More examples"'Madam, I have a secret to tell you.' Now the very word secret is enough to rouse any one's curiosity; and, giving a quick glance round to see if her duennas were on the alert, she prepared to listen, and I saw that her eye had caught sight of the letter."
Etymology
From Old Spanish duenna or dueña, from Vulgar Latin donna, from Latin domina (“Lady”). Doublet of dame.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.