schoolmistress

American  

[skool-mis-tris] / ˈskulˌmɪs trɪs /

noun

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

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schoolmistress British  

/ ˈskuːlˌmɪstrɪs /

noun

1. a woman who teaches in or runs a school

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Gender

See -ess.

Other Word Forms

• schoolmistressy adjective

Etymology

Origin of schoolmistress

First recorded in 1490–1500; school ¹ + mistress

Example Sentences

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

From Los Angeles Times

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

From New York Times

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.

From New York Times

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

From The Guardian

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May preferred tact to confrontation, even after Trump allies allegedly told the Telegraph newspaper that the U.S. president had grown weary of May’s “schoolmistress tone.”

From Washington Post