Noun

(es)

A female host.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington

, title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=The [Washington] Post's proprietor through those turbulent [Watergate] days, Katharine Graham, held a double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account.}}

A female innkeeper.

Stewardess: a woman steward on an airplane.

A bar hostess or bargirl; a paid female companion offering conversation and in some cases sex.

Noun

(en noun)

The set of apartments within which the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church are continuously secluded while engaged in choosing a pope.

The group of Roman Catholic cardinals locked in a conclave until they elect a new pope; the body of cardinals.

* (Robert South)

It was said a cardinal, by reason of his apparent likelihood to step into St. Peter's chair, that in two conclaves he went in pope and came out again cardinal.

A private meeting; a close or secret assembly.

* (Thomas Babington Macaulay)

The verdicts pronounced by this conclave (Johnson's Club) on new books, were speedily known over all London.