priestess
Americannoun
Gender
See -ess.
Etymology
Origin of priestess
Explanation
A priestess is a female religious figure. In ancient Greece, a priestess often dressed in the style of a goddess, wearing white robes and carrying a long staff. The word priestess is a feminine version of priest, which stems from the Old English prēost and its Greek root, presbyteros, "an elder." While hundreds of years ago a priestess was simply a female priest, today's Christians use priest whether they're talking about a man or a woman. The word priestess is used for ancient religions and occasionally pagan or Wiccan religious leaders.
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.
He was working in the grove, on the Iledi Ontooto shrine roof, when Susanne Wenger, the Austrian-Nigerian artist and Yoruba priestess, said to him: "It is wood carving you'll be doing."
From BBC • Jan. 19, 2026
Warren Buffett once called him a Cassandra—the mythological Trojan priestess whose grim prophecies were ignored.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 28, 2025
The ghost tours in New Orleans are borderline legendary, with popular offerings focusing on the supernatural, New Orleans’ “Casket Girls,” and on the origins of Marie Laveau’s rise to notoriety as a voodoo priestess.
From MarketWatch • Oct. 27, 2025
An actor playing an ancient Greek priestess holds a silver torch containing highly combustible materials over a concave mirror.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 15, 2024
Furious with anger, he was hurrying from the temple to capture and put to death the impious strangers and the treacherous priestess, when suddenly above him in the air a radiant form appeared—manifestly a goddess.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
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.
