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Mistress vs Doxy - What's the difference?

mistress | doxy |

As a noun mistress

is a woman, specifically one with great control, authority or ownership.

mistress

English

Noun

(es)
  • A woman, specifically one with great control, authority or ownership.
  • * , chapter=19
    • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood waiting for his mistress , and he gave her strips of bass to tie up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with knuckly old fingers that shook.}}
  • A female teacher.
  • A female partner in an extramarital relationship, generally including sexual relations.
  • A dominatrix.
  • * 2006 , Amelia May Kingston, The Triumph of Hope (page 376)
    • As part of BDSM play they can enhance the domineering tread of a mistress or hobble the steps of a slave.
  • A woman well skilled in anything, or having the mastery over it.
  • * Addison
    • A letter desires all young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's Arithmetic.
  • A woman regarded with love and devotion; a sweetheart.
    • (Clarendon)
  • (Scotland) A married woman; a wife.
  • * Sir (Walter Scott)
    • Several of the neighbouring mistresses had assembled to witness the event of this memorable evening.
  • (obsolete) The jack in the game of bowls.
    • (Beaumont and Fletcher)
  • female companion to a master

    • Usage notes

    In the sexual sense, mistress is narrowly taken to mean a woman involved in a committed'' extramarital relationship (an affair), often supported financially (a kept woman). It is broadly taken to mean a woman involved in an extramarital relationship regardless of the level of commitment, but requires more than a single act of adultery. Tiger Woods Does Not Have 11 “Mistresses”: His many paramours aren’t committed enough to merit that term. by Jesse Sheidlower, '', Dec. 10, 2009.

    Synonyms

    * (woman with control, authority or ownership''): boss (''applicable to either sex''), head (''applicable to either sex''), leader (''applicable to either sex ) * (female teacher ): schoolmarm * (woman who displaces a wife in the affections of a man''): bit on the side (''applicable to either sex ), fancy woman, , goomah * See also

    Antonyms

    Male equivalents: * (woman with control, authority or ownership ): master * (female teacher ): master * (female partner in an extramarital affair ): cicisbeo, fancy man * (dominatrix ): master

    Derived terms

    * headmistress * mistresshood * mistresslike * mistressship * mistressy * wardrobe mistress

    References

    See also

    * miss * Mrs

    doxy

    English

    Etymology 1

    Perhaps from (etyl) *.

    Alternative forms

    * (l), (l)

    Noun

    (doxies)
  • (archaic) A sweetheart; a prostitute or a mistress.
  • * 1922 , James Joyce, Ulysses :
    • Do you think the writer of Antony and Cleopatra , a passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the back of his head that he chose the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie withal?
  • * 2009 , Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall , Fourth Estate 2010, p. 328:
    • So then, of course, he paid her in kind...the place is full of his doxies , open a closet at Allington and some wench falls out of it.
    Synonyms
    * (l)

    See also

    * arch doxy

    Etymology 2

    From -doxy in (orthodoxy), (heterodoxy) etc.

    Noun

    (doxies)
  • (colloquial) A defined opinion.