Meanings
Tess1
- A diminutive of the female given name Teresa.
Cynthia and Melinda, reduced to Cindy and Mindy, as Carella had dreaded would happen from the moment she named them. Her older daughter had fared better. Tess, modern and sleek for Teresa, which conjured up cobblestoned streets in a mountain village in Potenza.
1999, Ed McBain, The Big Bad City, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 139
Tess2
TESS3
- abbreviationinitialismInitialism of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, a planned space telescope for NASA's Explorers program.
The dedicated time Cheops spent observing the star helped astronomers iron out the mixed signals from the TESS data to determine how many planets were crossing in front of the star and the resonance of their orbits.
2023 November 29, Ashley Strickland, “Astronomers discover nearby six-planet solar system with ‘pristine configuration’”, in CNN
Origin
- GermanTess
- EnglishTess
Borrowed from German Tess, a variant of Tesch.
More words from German
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with Tess
Anagrams
Cite this entry
Tess. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tess
“Tess.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tess. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Tess,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tess.
Source: Tess on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.