empress

American  

[em-pris] / ˈɛm prɪs /

noun

• empresses
  plural

1. a female ruler of an empire.

2. the consort of an emperor.

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empress British  

/ ˈɛmprɪs /

noun

1. the wife or widow of an emperor

2. a woman who holds the rank of emperor in her own right

3. a woman of great power and influence

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Gender

See -ess.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• empresses
  plural

Etymology

Origin of empress

1125–75; Middle English emperice, emperesse < Anglo-French; Old French emperesse, empereriz < Latin imperātrīcem, accusative of imperātrix, feminine of imperātor. See emperor, -trix

Explanation

An empress is either a female emporer or the wife of an emporer. Either way, it's a powerful woman. There are a lot of words that have gender built into them, like fireman and waitress. Another is empress, which is a female emperor. An emperor is like a king: a person with absolute power over a country. An empress is therefore like a queen. Also, just as a queen is the wife of a king, an empress might be the wife of an emperor, meaning she's not the ruler of the country but just married to the ruler.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

empress empresses

While government ministers tried to turn Russia into a constitutional monarchy, Rasputin offered spiritual guidance to the czar and empress.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026

This upcoming Spring/Summer 2026 season has been inspired by Vietnam's former ruling Nguyen dynasty, notably Emperor Khai Dinh and the last empress consort, Nam Phuong, who both lived under colonial French rule.

From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026

Her climb from lifestyle author to homemaking empress, along with her fall and brief imprisonment, spawned endless special reports, gossip columns, parodies, and unauthorized biographies both serious and salacious.

From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2024

The state visit to the UK by the emperor and empress of Japan will go ahead later this month, says Buckingham Palace.

From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2024

She glows in her ceremonials, looking more like an empress than a Blood Shrike.

From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir

Recording from his home in Pasadena, he has played men and women of all ages, races, nationalities and abilities, as well as “postapocalyptic people living in trees and empresses of fictitious planets,” he notes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2025

For a long while in history, the women cheered in Canyon Of Heroes parades tended to be queens or princesses or empresses.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 8, 2019

I postponed my research on Sims, believing him to be an altruistic outlier who could be a balm in my distressing work: someone who, according to one statue’s inscription, treated “alike empresses and slaves”.

From Nature ● Sep. 17, 2017

Regent uncles, dowager empresses, concubines, brothers… all end up doing the wrong thing.

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2012

This being the case, it is only just to say that, if example could afford it, the empresses had ample excuse for the most flagrant irregularities recorded of them.

From Roman Women by Alfred Brittain