Duennaship

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The role or status of a duenna. uncountable

    "Mademoiselle Lange, who was an orphan, lived alone under the duennaship of a middle-aged relative, a penniless hanger-on of the successful young actress, who acted as her chaperone, housekeeper, and maid, and kept unseemly or over-bold gallants at bay."

Example

More examples

"Mademoiselle Lange, who was an orphan, lived alone under the duennaship of a middle-aged relative, a penniless hanger-on of the successful young actress, who acted as her chaperone, housekeeper, and maid, and kept unseemly or over-bold gallants at bay."

Etymology

From duenna + -ship.

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