autocratess

From autocrat +‎ -ess.

autocratess (plural autocratesses)

1. (archaic) A female autocrat.

   Synonyms: autocratress, autocratrix

   • 1823, Robert Lyall, The Character of the Russians, and a Detailed History of Moscow. , London: T Cadell, , and W Blackwood, Edinburgh, page 191:

     On all of these vessels is the following inscription: “By the most high and god-loving order of the most pious great Gosudarina Catharine II., Empress and Autocratess of all Russia, this vessel was made to be used for the boiling of the holy oil, in the sixth year of her majesty’s prosperous reign, and from the birth of Christ the Saviour, the 1767th year.”

   • 1829 March 6, William Beckford, “ Record of Some of the Less Brilliant Alliances of Some of the English Nobility and Their Immediate Connections”, in Guy Chapman, editor, The Vision; Liber Veritatis, Printed at the University Press, Cambridge, for Constable and Company Limited London & Richard R. Smith Inc. New York, published 1930, page 112:

     Who has not heard of Melonia, widow Coutts and Duchess of St. Albans, that spirited great personage, Autocratess of Madeira, Countess of Nantz and Baroness Cogniac,—who as well as the late more severely virtuous Countess of Derby, the less oftener engaged in her time, but ever engaging Miss Brunton, Countess Dowager of Craven, and some other peeresses of equal celebrity we all know walked the ſtage for several years to the delight both of ruſtic and metropolitan audiences.

   • 1832, L⸺ [Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau], “Letter X.”, in Tour in Germany, Holland and England, in the Years 1826, 1827 & 1828; with Remarks on the Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants, and Anecdotes of Distinguished Public Characters. In a Series of Letters. By a German Prince., volume IV, London: Effingham Wilson, , page 384:

     But it is precisely because he is too far removed from the English, both by that native amiability which continually gains an involuntary conquest over his ‘Anglo manie’, and by his German cordiality, that he excites their envy rather than their admiration; and though ‘recherché’ by most, because he is the fashion, remains a strange meteor in their system, whom they attack where they can, and whom, at all events, they cannot take to their hearts as they do their own Jupiter Ammon, nor acknowledge in him ‘autorité sans replique’ with that blind submission they pay to their Autocratess.

   • 1835, [Sydney,] Lady Morgan, “The Opera”, in The Princess; or The Béguine, Brussels: Ad. Wahlen, . Frankfort O/M: Fred. Wilmans, , page 8:

     It was the fashion to be a member of the Omnibus, because the numbers were limited—because it enabled a man to cut his mother’s family box, to get rid of his wife’s set, or to have a house of refuge against the necessity of occupying his own high-paid place in the box of some autocratess of fashion, to which it is a distinction to subscribe and a bore to be confined.

   • 1836 September, “Art III.—Tales of the Woods and Fields. A Second Series of ‘The Two Old Men’s Tales.’ ”, in The Quarterly Review, volume LVII, number CXIII, London: John Murray, , page 80:

     The wives and daughters of the oldest provincial gentry, with pedigrees traced up to the Heptarchy, have been seen humbling themselves by the lowest acts of degradation to soften the obdurate autocratesses; […]

   • 1840, T D Gregg, “Letter V. Consequences of Unscriptural Legislation.”, in Protestant Ascendancy Vindicated, and National Regeneration, through the Instrumentality of National Religion, Urged; in a Series of Letters to the Corporation of Dublin, Dublin: D. R. Bleakley, ; London: R Groombridge, , page 52:

     Russia, indeed, made rapid progress in arts, civilization, and power, under autocrats and autocratesses that were libertines in practice, and infidels in principle.

   • 1841, Lord William Lennox, “Almack’s”, in Compton Audley; or, Hands Not Hearts, volume I, London: Richard Bentley, , pages 78–79:

     Much has been said of the “despotism of the autocratesses,” of their personal dislikes, political biases, individual prejudices and partialities.

   • 1842, George L[illie] Craik, Charles Mac Farlane, assisted by other contributors, The Pictorial History of England during the Reign of George the Third: Being a History of the People, as Well as a History of the Kingdom. , volume II, London: Charles Knight and Co., , page 314, column 2:

     […] we believe, without attributing too much greatness and spirit to Pitt, that he would not, upon any paltry conditions, have permitted a repetition of the disgraceful scenes of 1772-3, nor have made England stand by a quiet spectatress while Russia established a maritime influence in the Archipelago, and thereby dismembered the Ottoman empire. If there were any predilections in favour of the autocratess they were nourished rather by Fox than by Pitt.

   • 1849, Harriet Martineau, The History of England during the Thirty Years’ Peace: 1816–1846, volume I, London: Charles Knight, , page 90:

     As the close of the seventeenth century saw those who were considered as pre-eminently the guardians and champions of civil and religious liberty the foremost in imposing restrictions and penalties upon the Roman Catholics, and as the early part of the present century saw the same great party, with all its free and popular principles, the systematic apologists, if not admirers, of the tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte, so the latter part of the last saw the same Whigs courting the friendship of the Russian Autocratess Catherine, and discountenancing the emancipation of Spanish America.

   • 1873, C. Storm, ““Skirmish off Heligoland.”—Clarkson Stanfield.”, in John Fortescue Reynolds, Q.C., of Lincoln’s Inn; or “The Bubble and Squeak Company.” , volume II, London: T. Cautley Newby, , page 41:

     “What has become of the gallant Colonel? I have not seen him this age.” / “Gone to the Antipodes!” was the reply of the autocratess of the Reynolds family, who was very fond of sending her enemies into exile.

   • 1882, Frances Ann Kemble, Records of Later Life, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, page 62:

     Just, however, as we were seating ourselves, Lady Holland called out from the opposite side of the table, “No, no, ladies, I can’t allow that; I must have Mrs. Butler by me, if you please.” Thus challenged, I could not, without making a scene with Lady Holland, and beginning the poet’s banquet with a shock to everybody present, refuse her very dictatorial behest; and therefore I left my friendly neighbor, Lady ⸺, and went round to the place assigned me by the imperious autocratess of the dinner-table: between herself and Dr. Allen (“the gentle infidel,” “Lady Holland’s atheist,” as he was familiarly called by her familiars).

   • 1911, Franklin P[ierce] Adams, “Ballade of the Breakfast Table”, in Toboganning on Parnassus, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, page 49:

     Autocratesses, forgive my heat, / But isn’t it time to change that stuff? / Small is the benison I entreat — / Why don’t they ever have spoons enough?

   • 1915 March 15, John H. Robinson, editor, Farm-Poultry, volume XXVI, number 6, Boston, Mass.: Farm-Poultry Publishing Co., page 89, column 2:

     It must be obvious to every reader that if state and federal officials with the chief of the Food Research Laboratory as autocrat (or autocratess) can formulate and carry out this policy, there is absolutely no limit to the possibilities of their interference with distribution and production at any and every stage.

   • 1918 September 21, “Superintendent Brinson Becomes Severe”, in The Ocala Evening Star, volume 25, number 228, Ocala, Fla., page , column 2:

     If we said you and your brother and sister members of the educational autocracy were inclined to be piggish in trying to shove this ten-mill amendment through at this time, wouldn’t we be as polite as you are, and somewhat more truthful / Well, we will forgive you. We are used to being called names—in fact, we sometimes call ourself more names in a minute than you could think up in a week. And we ain’t going to call you and the other educational autocrats—particularly the autocratesses—any names, either.

   • 1929 December 17, J. M. Ballantyne, “Between You and Me”, in The Tulsa Tribune, volume XXVI, number 73, Tulsa, Okla., page twenty-four, column 5:

     “I resent anyone making up my mind but my wife,” said a burly friend of mine to me one day. That remark opens up a large field for discussing domestic autocratesses so dangerous that I’m glad it’s the end of this column.