captress

C3A1P3T1R1E1S1S1

noun

a female captor.

Scrabble 12
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Meanings

nouncaptress (plural captresses)

plural captresses

  1. a female captor.

    At least the captress gets, or thinks she has got, what she wants.

    1867, Public Opinion, page 217
    2 more examples

    Murmurs of expectation, like the purrings of hungry flame, arose from the nearest, who hoped to share in the good fortune of the sorcerer's captress.

    1944, Clark Ashton Smith, Lost Worlds, U of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page 261

    Where did the notion that its captress should be a virgin come from? Again, this was likely to be an Indian trait.

    2014, The Mahabharata, Volume 2: Book 2: The Book of Assembly; Book 3: The Book of the Forest, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 192

Origin

From captor + -ess.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

captress. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/captress

MLA

“captress.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/captress. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “captress,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/captress.

Source: captress on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.