stepdame
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of stepdame
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at step-, dame
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.
"That Nyseian isle, Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham, Whom Gentiles Ammon call, and Libyan Jove, Hid Amalthea and her florid son, Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea's eye."
From Bulfinch's Mythology: the Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch
The poor child is to have a stepdame so soon as the year of mourning is passed.
From Grisly Grisell by Charlotte Mary Yonge
There is A spur in its halt movements, to become All that the others cannot, in such things As still are free to both, to compensate320 For stepdame Nature's avarice at first.
From The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 5 Poetry by Ernest Hartley Coleridge
"Well, then, dost think I should make a fitting stepdame for Bartholomew and Mary and Remember?"
From Standish of Standish A story of the Pilgrims by Jane G. (Jane Goodwin) Austin
"Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth," said another poet, "never did any milk of hers once bless my thirsting mouth."
From The Circus, and Other Essays and Fugitive Pieces by Joyce Kilmer
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.
