headmistress
Americannoun
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.
These girls make up what the school’s fusty headmistress, Miss Mackay, derisively labels “the Brodie set.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 23, 2025
Neither the stage production nor the musical can do much with the melodramatic Madame Morrible, the headmistress at Shiz who becomes a key player in the Wonderful Wizard of Oz’s fascist machinations.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 10, 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
It's been six years since "Girls" concluded, and since then Kirke has played a variety of acclaimed roles, including a strict headmistress on "Sex Education" and a charismatic author on "Conversations with Friends."
From Salon • Jun. 2, 2023
But if there was one thing Penelope had learned from her headmistress, it was that worry, self-pity, and complaint were not how a Swanburne girl got through the day.
From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood
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.
