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.
As false As air, as water, as wind, as sandy earth; As fox to lamb; as wolf to heifer's calf; Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son.
From Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations by Various
Ye cruell starres, and eke ye gods unkinde, Heaven envious, and bitter stepdame Nature!
From The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 by Spenser, Edmund
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 Coleridge, Ernest Hartley
Beautiful, brilliant, and ambitious, the young and restless Armine quitted, in his eighteenth year, the house of his fathers, and his stepdame of a country, and entered the Imperial service.
From Henrietta Temple A Love Story by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
For the rest, there is still no lack of stimulants, and stepdame maltreatments, to keep one's resolution at the due pitch.
From The French Revolution by Carlyle, Thomas
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.
