headmistress
Americannoun
-
headmistresses
plural
noun
Gender
See -ess.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of headmistress
Explanation
A headmistress is the female principal of a school, particularly a private school. You might need to ask the headmistress of your high school for a college recommendation. Private schools and prep schools often call the person in charge a headmaste if he's a man and a headmistress if she's a woman. It's more common to have a principal in the United States, especially in public schools. The word headmistress is commonly thought of as British, but it's increasingly likely that a British student will use the term head teacher instead, since it can refer to either a man or a woman.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She was the headmistress of a Christian boarding school for girls that promoted traditional values while ostensibly accepting the changes required by the new order.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 19, 2025
This was to the fury of her former headmistress in Eastbourne, who had hoped she would apply to Cambridge and wrote to the theatre to tell them so.
From BBC ● Oct. 28, 2025
Her late-onset acclaim as the loyal deputy headmistress charged with Gryffindor House in the much-hyped wizard franchise was to be expected.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2024
Headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh, who calls herself Britain’s strictest headmistress, said the ruling was a victory for all schools.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
That is how Miss Charlotte Mortimer, the kind headmistress at Swanburne, had explained the situation.
From "The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling" by Maryrose Wood
For one thing, amapiano - a type of house music that emerged from South Africa's townships in the early 2010s - was a genre for young people, not for 65-year-old school headmistresses.
From BBC ● Dec. 11, 2020
Across Australia politicians, police, columnists, headmistresses, radio loudmouths, preachers and priests had united in declaring Roth’s 1969 scatological masterpiece Portnoy’s Complaint a danger to the morals of the nation.
From The Guardian ● May 26, 2018
I've been expelled from three and the headmistresses still swoon when they hear my name breathed.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 6, 2010
A paradoxical reason for sending children to private prep schools was offered last week to a Manhattan conference of headmasters and headmistresses.
From Time Magazine Archive
For several minutes, he sat and watched the old headmasters and headmistresses snoozing in their frames, thinking about what he had just heard, and running his fingers over his scar.
From "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire" by J. K. Rowling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
