cicisbea

plural cicisbeas · plural cicisbee

1. historicalThe female companion or lover of a (chiefly married) man, especially in eighteenth-century Italy.

   The instant he was taken ill, he was persuaded he should dye, and refused to see anybody; even my neighbour, Anna Frescobaldi, his Cicisbea of 30 years standing was forbid.

   1876, Dr Doran, ‘Mann’ and Manners at the Court of Florence, 1740–1786, page 143

   1 more example

   Bonducci […] had been actively courting Walpole with such projects as his Italian translation of Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock, which he dedicated to Horace Walpole's cicisbea Elisabetta Capponi.

   2009, Paula Findlen, “Anatomy of a Lesbian”, in Findlen, Roworth & Sama, editor, Italy's Eighteenth Century, Stanford University Press, page 242