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Mistress vs Submissive - What's the difference?

mistress | submissive |

As nouns the difference between mistress and submissive

is that mistress is a woman, specifically one with great control, authority or ownership while submissive is one who submits.

As an adjective submissive is

meekly obedient or passive.

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

    submissive

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • one who submits
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Meekly obedient or passive.
  • * 1756 , Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke , G. Bell & sons, page 314:
  • The powerful managers for government were not sufficiently submissive to the pleasure of the possessors of immediate and personal favour, sometimes from a confidence in their own strength natural and acquired; sometimes from a fear of offending their friends, and weakening that lead in the country, which gave them a consideration independent of the court.
  • * 1913 , Edward Lee Thorndike, Educational Psychology , Teachers college, Columbia university, page 92:
  • If the human being who answers these tendencies assumes a submissive behavior, in essence a lowering of head and shoulders, wavering glance, absence of all preparations for attack, general weakening of muscle tonus, and hesitancy in movement, the movements of attempt at mastery become modified into attempts at the more obvious swagger, strut and glare of triumph.
  • * 2007 , Brian Watermeyer, Disability and Social Change: A South African Agenda , HSRC Press, page 269:
  • Once oppression has been internalised, little force is needed to keep us submissive .

    Derived terms

    * submissively (adverb) * submissiveness (noun)

    Synonyms

    * docile * meek * slavish * timid * obedient

    Antonyms

    * dominant, domineering (ruling ) * defiant, rebellious (ignoring )