autocratess

plural autocratesses

1. archaicA female autocrat.

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

   1840, T[resham] D[ames] 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[ichard] Groombridge, […], page 52

   5 more examples

   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.”

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

   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.

   1829 March 6, William Beckford, “[Liber Veritatis] 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

   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.

   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

   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.

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

   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; […]

   1836 September, “Art[icle] 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

   Synonyms: autocratress, autocratrix