schoolmistress

[skool-mis-tris]

noun

1. a woman who presides over or teaches in a school.

schoolmistress

/ ˈskuːlˌmɪstrɪs /

noun

1. a woman who teaches in or runs a school

Gender Note

See -ess.

Other Word Forms

• schoolmistressy adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of schoolmistress¹

First recorded in 1490–1500; school ¹ + mistress

Example Sentences

“I didn’t want her to look like a grump schoolmistress,” Atwood said.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Dynamic, too, was Nicole Car as the widowed schoolmistress with hopeless belief in Grimes’s salvation.

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"She was rather like a schoolmistress, actually because, we were young girls - 17, 18... You know, if your Millennium Falcons weren't touching, 'Come on girls, what's going off here? We've got to get this out!'"

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There’s the occasional sharp moment to remind us of the character’s inner fires, but mostly she plays it cool and oddly small-scale, like an overly qualified schoolmistress who happens to find herself ruling an empire.

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Trump has grown frustrated by the prime minister’s ‘schoolmistress’ manner.

Read more on The Guardian