-ess
suff.（后缀）

Female:
雌性：
lioness.
雌狮

语源

Middle English -esse
中古英语 -esse
from Old French
源自古法语
from Late Latin -issa
源自后期拉丁语 -issa
from Greek
源自希腊语

用法

Critics have argued that sexist connotations are implicit in the use of the feminine suffix-ess, as found in words such asambassadress, sculptress, waitress, stewardess, hostess, actress, and many others, in that the suffix implies that the denoted roles differ as performed by women and men.In some cases, as with the wordtemptress, there may be some legitimacy to such an implication of difference; and for this reason the acceptability of the suffix may depend on the individual word.In the case of most occupational terms,the suffix is widely felt to be inappropriate.Thus 65 percent of the Usage Panel rejectssculptress in the sentence Georgia O'Keeffe is not as well-known as a sculptress as she is as a painter; similarly 75 percent rejectsambassadress in the sentence When the ambassadress arrives, please show her directly to my office. With certain occupations, however, differentiation based on gender may be legitimate:acting, for example, is an occupation in which the parts one can play may in fact depend on one's sex.Thus 92 percent acceptsactress in There are not very many good parts available for older actresses, though it should be noted that many women prefer to be calledactors. In the case of most social roles,gender is felt to make a legitimate difference, and the suffix is accepted.Thus 87 percent of the Panel acceptshostess in the sentence Mary Ann is such a charming hostess that her parties always go off smoothly; similarly, 67 percent acceptsseductress in the sentence Mata Hari used her ability as a seductress to spy for the Germans. When the same word may be used in different senses,one social and the other not,the acceptability of the suffix varies accordingly.Thus 93 percent acceptsheiress in the sentence His only hope now is to marry an heiress, while only 34 percent acceptsheiress in its metaphorical use to mean “successor,” as inHis daughter and political heiress has returned to her country in triumph. See Usage Note at man
批评家们一直认为阴性后缀-ess 的用法暗含有性别歧视的意思，例如单词ambassadress,sculptress,waitress,stewardess,hostess,actress 以及其它许多单词，该后缀都暗示了男人和女人扮演的角色是不同的。在一些情况下，暗示男女不同使用该后缀具有一定的合理性，像temptress 等，但这种用法只能被个别单词接受。在大多数专业的词语中，这个后缀的用法被认为是不合理的。因此在用法使用小组中有65％的人认为sculptress 在句子乔姬安娜作为一位女雕刻家远没有作为一个水彩画家出名的用法是错误的。有将近75％的人认为单词ambassadess 在句子当女大使来时，请直接把她带到我的办公室来”。的用法也是不对的。然而，在一些惯用法中，由于单词在语法上的词性不同，使用该后缀是合理的，例如演戏就是一个人们只有靠性别才能选择角色扮演的职业。因此有92％的人接受单词actress 在并没有多少好角色适合年纪较大的女演员一句中的用法，尽管还需要注意有许多女人还愿意被称作actors。在许多社会职务上，这种词性上的区别似乎使运用后缀具有一定的合理性。因此有87％的用法使用小组成员接受单词hostess 在句子玛丽·安是一位富有魅力的女主人，她举办的聚会总是过得很快中的用法。同样地，有67％的成员认为seductess 在句子 “玛塔·哈瑞运用她具有的诱惑力为德国人刺探情报” 的用法是对的。当一个单词具有不同的含义时，一个比较普遍而另一个不然，那么对使用后缀所引起性变化的接受就会相应的发生改变。于是有93％的成员能够接受heiress 在句子他现在唯一的希望就是和一位女继承人结婚中的用法，而只有34％的成员能够接受它的比喻含义成功者，例如在句子她的女儿和一位政权继任者胜利地重返祖国参见 man

-ess

suffix forming nouns

indicating a female

⇒ waitress

⇒ lioness

The suffix -ess in such words as poetess, authoress is now almost invariably regarded as disparaging or extremely old-fashioned; a gender-neutral term poet, author is preferred

Origin

via Old French from Late Latin -issa, from Greek

-ess

Word Origin

1

a suffix forming distinctively feminine nouns:

countess; goddess; lioness.

Origin

Middle English -esse < Old French < Late Latin -issa < Greek

Usage note

Since at least the 14th century, English has both borrowed feminine nouns in -ess from French (-esse in French and in some early English forms) and applied the French ending to native or naturalized words, most frequently agent nouns in -er or -or. Some of the earliest borrowings—titles for the nobility and church dignitaries—are still in use, among them countess, princess, duchess, empress, abbess, and prioress. Of the scores of new nouns that were created from the 14th century on, many have long ago disappeared entirely from use: devouress; dwelleress. But many have survived, although their use has declined sharply.

Nouns in -ess denoting occupation or profession are rapidly disappearing from American English. Airlines now refer to cabin personnel as flight attendants, not stewards and stewardesses. In the arts, authoress, editress, poetess, sculptress, and similar terms are either rejected or discouraged and almost always replaced by author, editor, poet, sculptor. Nouns in -ess designating the holder of public office are hardly ever encountered in modern American usage. Women holding the office of ambassador, mayor, or governor are referred to by those titles rather than by the older, sex-marked ambassadress, mayoress, or governess. (Governess has developed a special sense in relation to childcare; this use is less common in the U.S. than in Britain.) Among other terms almost never used in modern American English are ancestress, directress, instructress, manageress, oratress, postmistress, and proprietress. If the sex of the performer is not relevant to performance of the task or function, the neutral term in -er or -or is now widely used.

Some nouns in -ess are still current: actress (but some women in the acting profession prefer to be called actors); adventuress; enchantress; heiress (largely in journalistic writing); hostess (but women who conduct radio and television programs are referred to as hosts); millionairess; murderess; seamstress; seductress; sorceress; temptress; and waitress (the substitute term server has not been widely adopted).

Jewess and Negress are usually considered offensive today. Mistress has given way to master in the sense of one who has acquired expertise in something: She is a master at interpreting financial reports. See also -enne, -ette, -trix.

Related Words

actress
adulteress
adventuress
ambassadress
ancestress
anchoress

-essa suffix forming distinctively feminine nouns, as in countess, hostess, lioness.

[French -esse, from Latin -issa, from Greek]

-ess
noun suffix

ETYMOLOGY Middle English -esse, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin -issa, from Greek

: female
giantess

-ess¹

/ɪs/

suffix

forming nouns denoting female gender ［构成名词］表示“女性”, “雌性”：: abbess

adulteress

tigress.

USAGEThe suffix -ess has been used since the Middle Ages to form nouns denoting female persons, using a neutral or a male form as the base （as hostess and actress from host and actor, for example）. Despite the apparent equivalence between the male and female pairs of forms, however, they are rarely equivalent in terms of actual use and connotation in modern English （consider the differences in meaning and use between manager and manageress or poet and poetess）. In the late 20th century, as the role of women in society changed, some of these feminine forms have become problematic and are regarded as old-fashioned, sexist, and patronizing （e.g. poetess, authoress, editress）. The 'male' form is increasingly being used as the 'neutral' form, where the gender of the person concerned is simply unspecified.

词源

from French -esse, via late Latin from Greek -issa.

-ess²

/ɪs/

suffix

forming abstract nouns from adjectives, such as largess. ［附在形容词后构成抽象名词, 如largess］。

词源

Middle English via French -esse from Latin -itia.

▪ I.-ess, suffix¹forming ns. denoting female persons or animals, is a. Fr. -esse:—Com. Romanic -essa:—late L. -issa, a. Gr. -ισσα (:—-ikyā: cf. the OE. fem. agent-suffix -icge:—-igjôn-) occurring in class. Gr. only in βασίλισσα queen (f. βασιλ-εύς king), but after the analogy of this employed in several late formations, as βαλάνισσα bathing-woman, πανδόκισσα female innkeeper. A few of these (notably διακόνισσα, L. diaconissa deaconess) were adopted into late L. together with their correlative masculines, and many new derivatives of the same pattern were formed in Latin, whence they descended into the Romanic langs.; e.g. from abbātem abbot, was formed abbātissa, whence Fr. abbesse abbess. On the analogy of these the suffix became in Romanic the usual means of forming feminine derivatives expressing sex. In ME. many words in -esse were adopted from Fr., as countess, duchess, hostess, lioness, mistress, princess, and several which were formed on ns. in -ëor, -ier (see -er²), as † devoureresse, enchantress, † espyouresse, sorceress. In imitation of these the suffix was in 14th c. appended to Eng. agent-nouns in -er, as in Wyclif's dwelleresse, sleeress (f. sleer = slayer), and to other native words, as in goddess. In 15th c. derivatives in -er + -ess gradually superseded the older Eng. fem. agent-nouns in -ster (OE. -estre), which no longer had an exclusively feminine sense; subsequently the ns. in -ster (exc. spinster) came to be regarded as properly masc., and new feminines in -ess were formed on them, as seamstress, songstress. By writers of 16th and succeeding centuries derivatives in -ess were formed very freely; many of these are now obsolete or little used, the tendency of mod. usage being to treat the agent-nouns in -er, and the ns. indicating profession or occupation, as of common gender, unless there be some special reason to the contrary. Of the words of Eng. formation still in current use, examples are authoress, giantess, Jewess, patroness, poetess, priestess, quakeress, tailoress. In Eng. the suffix is not used to form feminines of names of animals: lioness, tigress being adoptions from Fr. When -ess is added to a n. in -ter, -tor, the vowel before the r is usually elided, as in actress, doctress, protectress, waitress; the derivatives with ending -tress, f. L. agent-nouns in -tor, have in most cases been suggested by, and may be regarded as virtual adaptations of, the corresponding Fr. words in -trice:—L. -trīcem. The substitution of governess (already in Caxton) for the earlier governeresse f. governor was perh. due to false analogy with pairs of words like adulter-er, -ess, cater-er, -ess, sorcer-er, -ess; in conqueress, murderess, adventuress the similar phenomenon is sufficiently explained by phonetic reasons. The existence of such words, in which -ess has the appearance of being added directly to vbs., gave rise in the 17th. c. to formations like confectioness, entertainess, instructess; but none of these obtained general currency.▪ II.-ess, suffix²ME. -esse, in ns. a. Fr., represents OF. -esse, -ece, = Pr. -ezza, -eza, Sp. -eza, It. -ezza:—L. -itia, appended to adjs. to form nouns of quality; examples are duress, † humblesse, largess, prowess, † richesse (now riches). These words have been imitated in the pseudo-archaic idlesse, but otherwise the suffix scarcely occurs as an Eng. formative.

-ess

fem. suffix, from French -esse, from Late Latin -issa, from Greek -issa (cognate with Old English fem. agent suffix -icge); rare in classical Greek but more common later, in diakonissa "deaconess" and other Church terms picked up by Latin.

-ess

female:

actress, goddess, poetess

1. suffix¹ | 2. suffix²

1
-ess /ɛs, ɪs/ suffix¹.

ORIGIN: Repr. French -esse from Proto-Romance from Late Latin -issa from Greek.

In and forming nouns denoting females, as actress, adulteress, countess, goddess, lioness, etc., sometimes with the sense ‘wife of’, as ambassadress, mayoress, etc.

NOTE Nouns in -er, -or, etc., which are not sex-specific, where such exist, are now often preferred, and the forms ending in -ess may seem dated or sexist.

2
-ess /ɛs/ suffix² (not productive).

ORIGIN: Repr. Old French -esse, -ece from Latin -itia: cf. -ice¹.

In nouns of quality formed from adjectives, as duress, largess, etc.

☞ ess

-ess
\ə̇s sometimes |es\ noun suffix
(-es)
Etymology: Middle English -esse, from Old French, from Late Latin -issa, from Greek
: female
< goddess >
< giantess >
— especially in agent nouns
< actress >
< poetess >

-ess

Suffix
(plural -esses)

Suffix appended to words to make a female form.
Examples:

actress

duchess

goddess

lioness

princess

shepherdess

stewardess

waitress

Etymology

From Middle English -esse, a borrowing from Old French -esse, from Late Latin -issa, from Ancient Greek -ισσα (-issa). Displaced Old English -en (feminine suffix of nouns).

Usage notes

Professions ending in -ter or -tor change to -tr when this suffix is added.

A female sempster is a sempstress; a female actor is an actress.

Professions ending in -e lose an e when this suffix is added.

A female prince is a princess.

As in Romance languages, the masculine form is always used when referring to both males and females. However, note the unusual word marquess which is masculine.

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were very popular actors.

Who would like to be an actor after high school?

This suffix tends to be regarded as sexist and as such is starting to fall into disuse; a single, gender-neutral term is preferred by some even though it is a less specific term.

Glenda Jackson is a famous actor.

Glenda Jackson is a famous actress. More specific language signaling that Glenda is a female.

Depending on etymology, other feminine affixes are used; see synonyms.

Synonyms

(female suffix): -a, -enne, -ette, -euse, -ress, -rix, she-

Derived terms

English words suffixed with -ess

References

“-ess” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001).

后缀：-ess [名词后缀]

表示女性（人）或雌性（动物）

citizeness 女公民

manageress 女经理

poetess 女诗人

authoress 女作家

mayoress 女市长，市长夫人

governess 女统治者

Jewess 犹太女人

tailoress 女裁缝

hostess 女主人

murderess 女凶手

shepherdess 牧羊女

goddess 女神

lioness 母狮

leopardess 母豹

eagless 雌鹰

millionairess 女百分富翁

giantess 女巨人

astronautess 女太空人

heiress 女继承人

patroness 女保护人

词根词缀：-ess

【来源及含义】Greek -issa > Late Latin -issa > Old French -esse > Middle English -esse: a suffix that forms nouns meaning a female +++, as in lioness, tigress, heiress, hostess, and sculptress

【相关描述】When -ess is added to a noun ending in -tor, -ter, the vowel before r is generally elided (eliminated or left out), as in actress (actor + -ess); and such a derivative with the ending -tress (often equivalent to French ) is usually considered a reduced form of Latin -trix, -tricem and popularly regarded as the equivalent of -tor + -ess.

In Middle English many words in -esse were adopted from French; such as, countess, duchess, mistress, and princess, or formed on nouns in -er; such as, enchantress and sorceress.

The suffix -ess is diminishing from English usage, with trends or tendencies toward avoiding any unnecessary references to gender or sexual categorizing (feminine or masculine.

The suffixes -er and -or are no longer gender-specific in modern English: an author or manager, like a doctor or writer, may be male or female, so the words authoress and manageress are considered redundant.

Some -ess words remain in use; for example, heiress and actress, although actor is being used more often now for both men and women.

【同源单词】actress, adulteress, adventuress, ancestress, auditress, aviatress

词汇	-ess
词根词缀	AHD Collins Dictionary.com Macquarie MWCD NewOxfordEC OED Online Etymology Dictionary Prefixsuffix.com SOED WBD Webster Wiktionary YoudictWordRoots -ess suff.（后缀） Female: 雌性： lioness. 雌狮语源 Middle English -esse 中古英语 -esse from Old French 源自古法语 from Late Latin -issa 源自后期拉丁语 -issa from Greek 源自希腊语用法 Critics have argued that sexist connotations are implicit in the use of the feminine suffix-ess, as found in words such asambassadress, sculptress, waitress, stewardess, hostess, actress, and many others, in that the suffix implies that the denoted roles differ as performed by women and men.In some cases, as with the wordtemptress, there may be some legitimacy to such an implication of difference; and for this reason the acceptability of the suffix may depend on the individual word.In the case of most occupational terms,the suffix is widely felt to be inappropriate.Thus 65 percent of the Usage Panel rejectssculptress in the sentence Georgia O'Keeffe is not as well-known as a sculptress as she is as a painter; similarly 75 percent rejectsambassadress in the sentence When the ambassadress arrives, please show her directly to my office. With certain occupations, however, differentiation based on gender may be legitimate:acting, for example, is an occupation in which the parts one can play may in fact depend on one's sex.Thus 92 percent acceptsactress in There are not very many good parts available for older actresses, though it should be noted that many women prefer to be calledactors. In the case of most social roles,gender is felt to make a legitimate difference, and the suffix is accepted.Thus 87 percent of the Panel acceptshostess in the sentence Mary Ann is such a charming hostess that her parties always go off smoothly; similarly, 67 percent acceptsseductress in the sentence Mata Hari used her ability as a seductress to spy for the Germans. When the same word may be used in different senses,one social and the other not,the acceptability of the suffix varies accordingly.Thus 93 percent acceptsheiress in the sentence His only hope now is to marry an heiress, while only 34 percent acceptsheiress in its metaphorical use to mean “successor,” as inHis daughter and political heiress has returned to her country in triumph. See Usage Note at man 批评家们一直认为阴性后缀-ess 的用法暗含有性别歧视的意思，例如单词ambassadress,sculptress,waitress,stewardess,hostess,actress 以及其它许多单词，该后缀都暗示了男人和女人扮演的角色是不同的。在一些情况下，暗示男女不同使用该后缀具有一定的合理性，像temptress 等，但这种用法只能被个别单词接受。在大多数专业的词语中，这个后缀的用法被认为是不合理的。因此在用法使用小组中有65％的人认为sculptress 在句子乔姬安娜作为一位女雕刻家远没有作为一个水彩画家出名的用法是错误的。有将近75％的人认为单词ambassadess 在句子当女大使来时，请直接把她带到我的办公室来”。的用法也是不对的。然而，在一些惯用法中，由于单词在语法上的词性不同，使用该后缀是合理的，例如演戏就是一个人们只有靠性别才能选择角色扮演的职业。因此有92％的人接受单词actress 在并没有多少好角色适合年纪较大的女演员一句中的用法，尽管还需要注意有许多女人还愿意被称作actors。在许多社会职务上，这种词性上的区别似乎使运用后缀具有一定的合理性。因此有87％的用法使用小组成员接受单词hostess 在句子玛丽·安是一位富有魅力的女主人，她举办的聚会总是过得很快中的用法。同样地，有67％的成员认为seductess 在句子 “玛塔·哈瑞运用她具有的诱惑力为德国人刺探情报” 的用法是对的。当一个单词具有不同的含义时，一个比较普遍而另一个不然，那么对使用后缀所引起性变化的接受就会相应的发生改变。于是有93％的成员能够接受heiress 在句子他现在唯一的希望就是和一位女继承人结婚中的用法，而只有34％的成员能够接受它的比喻含义成功者，例如在句子她的女儿和一位政权继任者胜利地重返祖国参见 man -ess suffix forming nouns indicating a female ⇒ waitress ⇒ lioness The suffix -ess in such words as poetess, authoress is now almost invariably regarded as disparaging or extremely old-fashioned; a gender-neutral term poet, author is preferred Origin via Old French from Late Latin -issa, from Greek -ess Word Origin 1 a suffix forming distinctively feminine nouns: countess; goddess; lioness. Origin Middle English -esse < Old French < Late Latin -issa < Greek Usage note Since at least the 14th century, English has both borrowed feminine nouns in -ess from French (-esse in French and in some early English forms) and applied the French ending to native or naturalized words, most frequently agent nouns in -er or -or. Some of the earliest borrowings—titles for the nobility and church dignitaries—are still in use, among them countess, princess, duchess, empress, abbess, and prioress. Of the scores of new nouns that were created from the 14th century on, many have long ago disappeared entirely from use: devouress; dwelleress. But many have survived, although their use has declined sharply. Nouns in -ess denoting occupation or profession are rapidly disappearing from American English. Airlines now refer to cabin personnel as flight attendants, not stewards and stewardesses. In the arts, authoress, editress, poetess, sculptress, and similar terms are either rejected or discouraged and almost always replaced by author, editor, poet, sculptor. Nouns in -ess designating the holder of public office are hardly ever encountered in modern American usage. Women holding the office of ambassador, mayor, or governor are referred to by those titles rather than by the older, sex-marked ambassadress, mayoress, or governess. (Governess has developed a special sense in relation to childcare; this use is less common in the U.S. than in Britain.) Among other terms almost never used in modern American English are ancestress, directress, instructress, manageress, oratress, postmistress, and proprietress. If the sex of the performer is not relevant to performance of the task or function, the neutral term in -er or -or is now widely used. Some nouns in -ess are still current: actress (but some women in the acting profession prefer to be called actors); adventuress; enchantress; heiress (largely in journalistic writing); hostess (but women who conduct radio and television programs are referred to as hosts); millionairess; murderess; seamstress; seductress; sorceress; temptress; and waitress (the substitute term server has not been widely adopted). Jewess and Negress are usually considered offensive today. Mistress has given way to master in the sense of one who has acquired expertise in something: She is a master at interpreting financial reports. See also -enne, -ette, -trix. Related Words actress adulteress adventuress ambassadress ancestress anchoress -essa suffix forming distinctively feminine nouns, as in countess, hostess, lioness. [French -esse, from Latin -issa, from Greek] -ess noun suffix ETYMOLOGY Middle English -esse, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin -issa, from Greek : female giantess -ess¹ /ɪs/ suffix forming nouns denoting female gender ［构成名词］表示“女性”, “雌性”： abbess adulteress tigress. USAGEThe suffix -ess has been used since the Middle Ages to form nouns denoting female persons, using a neutral or a male form as the base （as hostess and actress from host and actor, for example）. Despite the apparent equivalence between the male and female pairs of forms, however, they are rarely equivalent in terms of actual use and connotation in modern English （consider the differences in meaning and use between manager and manageress or poet and poetess）. In the late 20th century, as the role of women in society changed, some of these feminine forms have become problematic and are regarded as old-fashioned, sexist, and patronizing （e.g. poetess, authoress, editress）. The 'male' form is increasingly being used as the 'neutral' form, where the gender of the person concerned is simply unspecified. 词源 from French -esse, via late Latin from Greek -issa. -ess² /ɪs/ suffix forming abstract nouns from adjectives, such as largess. ［附在形容词后构成抽象名词, 如largess］。词源 Middle English via French -esse from Latin -itia. ▪ I.-ess, suffix¹forming ns. denoting female persons or animals, is a. Fr. -esse:—Com. Romanic -essa:—late L. -issa, a. Gr. -ισσα (:—-ikyā: cf. the OE. fem. agent-suffix -icge:—-igjôn-) occurring in class. Gr. only in βασίλισσα queen (f. βασιλ-εύς king), but after the analogy of this employed in several late formations, as βαλάνισσα bathing-woman, πανδόκισσα female innkeeper. A few of these (notably διακόνισσα, L. diaconissa deaconess) were adopted into late L. together with their correlative masculines, and many new derivatives of the same pattern were formed in Latin, whence they descended into the Romanic langs.; e.g. from abbātem abbot, was formed abbātissa, whence Fr. abbesse abbess. On the analogy of these the suffix became in Romanic the usual means of forming feminine derivatives expressing sex. In ME. many words in -esse were adopted from Fr., as countess, duchess, hostess, lioness, mistress, princess, and several which were formed on ns. in -ëor, -ier (see -er²), as † devoureresse, enchantress, † espyouresse, sorceress. In imitation of these the suffix was in 14th c. appended to Eng. agent-nouns in -er, as in Wyclif's dwelleresse, sleeress (f. sleer = slayer), and to other native words, as in goddess. In 15th c. derivatives in -er + -ess gradually superseded the older Eng. fem. agent-nouns in -ster (OE. -estre), which no longer had an exclusively feminine sense; subsequently the ns. in -ster (exc. spinster) came to be regarded as properly masc., and new feminines in -ess were formed on them, as seamstress, songstress. By writers of 16th and succeeding centuries derivatives in -ess were formed very freely; many of these are now obsolete or little used, the tendency of mod. usage being to treat the agent-nouns in -er, and the ns. indicating profession or occupation, as of common gender, unless there be some special reason to the contrary. Of the words of Eng. formation still in current use, examples are authoress, giantess, Jewess, patroness, poetess, priestess, quakeress, tailoress. In Eng. the suffix is not used to form feminines of names of animals: lioness, tigress being adoptions from Fr. When -ess is added to a n. in -ter, -tor, the vowel before the r is usually elided, as in actress, doctress, protectress, waitress; the derivatives with ending -tress, f. L. agent-nouns in -tor, have in most cases been suggested by, and may be regarded as virtual adaptations of, the corresponding Fr. words in -trice:—L. -trīcem. The substitution of governess (already in Caxton) for the earlier governeresse f. governor was perh. due to false analogy with pairs of words like adulter-er, -ess, cater-er, -ess, sorcer-er, -ess; in conqueress, murderess, adventuress the similar phenomenon is sufficiently explained by phonetic reasons. The existence of such words, in which -ess has the appearance of being added directly to vbs., gave rise in the 17th. c. to formations like confectioness, entertainess, instructess; but none of these obtained general currency.▪ II.-ess, suffix²ME. -esse, in ns. a. Fr., represents OF. -esse, -ece, = Pr. -ezza, -eza, Sp. -eza, It. -ezza:—L. -itia, appended to adjs. to form nouns of quality; examples are duress, † humblesse, largess, prowess, † richesse (now riches). These words have been imitated in the pseudo-archaic idlesse, but otherwise the suffix scarcely occurs as an Eng. formative. -ess fem. suffix, from French -esse, from Late Latin -issa, from Greek -issa (cognate with Old English fem. agent suffix -icge); rare in classical Greek but more common later, in diakonissa "deaconess" and other Church terms picked up by Latin. -ess female: actress, goddess, poetess 1. suffix¹ \| 2. suffix² 1 -ess /ɛs, ɪs/ suffix¹. ORIGIN: Repr. French -esse from Proto-Romance from Late Latin -issa from Greek. In and forming nouns denoting females, as actress, adulteress, countess, goddess, lioness, etc., sometimes with the sense ‘wife of’, as ambassadress, mayoress, etc. NOTE Nouns in -er, -or, etc., which are not sex-specific, where such exist, are now often preferred, and the forms ending in -ess may seem dated or sexist. 2 -ess /ɛs/ suffix² (not productive). ORIGIN: Repr. Old French -esse, -ece from Latin -itia: cf. -ice¹. In nouns of quality formed from adjectives, as duress, largess, etc. ☞ ess -ess \ə̇s sometimes \|es\ noun suffix (-es) Etymology: Middle English -esse, from Old French, from Late Latin -issa, from Greek : female < goddess > < giantess > — especially in agent nouns < actress > < poetess > -ess Suffix (plural -esses) Suffix appended to words to make a female form. Examples: actress duchess goddess lioness princess shepherdess stewardess waitress Etymology From Middle English -esse, a borrowing from Old French -esse, from Late Latin -issa, from Ancient Greek -ισσα (-issa). Displaced Old English -en (feminine suffix of nouns). Usage notes Professions ending in -ter or -tor change to -tr when this suffix is added. A female sempster is a sempstress; a female actor is an actress. Professions ending in -e lose an e when this suffix is added. A female prince is a princess. As in Romance languages, the masculine form is always used when referring to both males and females. However, note the unusual word marquess which is masculine. Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were very popular actors. Who would like to be an actor* after high school?* This suffix tends to be regarded as sexist and as such is starting to fall into disuse; a single, gender-neutral term is preferred by some even though it is a less specific term. Glenda Jackson is a famous actor. Glenda Jackson is a famous actress. More specific language signaling that Glenda is a female. Depending on etymology, other feminine affixes are used; see synonyms. Synonyms (female suffix): -a, -enne, -ette, -euse, -ress, -rix, she- Derived terms ► English words suffixed with -ess References “-ess” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001). 后缀：-ess [名词后缀] 表示女性（人）或雌性（动物） citizeness 女公民 manageress 女经理 poetess 女诗人 authoress 女作家 mayoress 女市长，市长夫人 governess 女统治者 Jewess 犹太女人 tailoress 女裁缝 hostess 女主人 murderess 女凶手 shepherdess 牧羊女 goddess 女神 lioness 母狮 leopardess 母豹 eagless 雌鹰 millionairess 女百分富翁 giantess 女巨人 astronautess 女太空人 heiress 女继承人 patroness 女保护人词根词缀：-ess 【来源及含义】Greek -issa > Late Latin -issa > Old French -esse > Middle English -esse: a suffix that forms nouns meaning a female +++, as in lioness, tigress, heiress, hostess, and sculptress 【相关描述】When -ess is added to a noun ending in -tor, -ter, the vowel before r is generally elided (eliminated or left out), as in actress (actor + -ess); and such a derivative with the ending -tress (often equivalent to French ) is usually considered a reduced form of Latin -trix, -tricem and popularly regarded as the equivalent of -tor + -ess. In Middle English many words in -esse were adopted from French; such as, countess, duchess, mistress, and princess, or formed on nouns in -er; such as, enchantress and sorceress. The suffix -ess is diminishing from English usage, with trends or tendencies toward avoiding any unnecessary references to gender or sexual categorizing (feminine or masculine. The suffixes -er and -or are no longer gender-specific in modern English: an author or manager, like a doctor or writer, may be male or female, so the words authoress and manageress are considered redundant. Some -ess words remain in use; for example, heiress and actress, although actor is being used more often now for both men and women. 【同源单词】actress, adulteress, adventuress, ancestress, auditress, aviatress
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suffix forming nouns

Origin

-ess

Related Words

-ess

Suffix (plural -esses)

Etymology

Usage notes

Synonyms

Derived terms

References

后缀：-ess [名词后缀]

词根词缀：-ess

Suffix
(plural -esses)