dictatrix
English edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
dictatrix (plural dictatrices)
- A female dictator.
- 1849, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, chapter 3, in The Caxtons[1], volume 1, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, page 70:
- Our principal domestic, in dignity and station, was Mrs Primmins, who was waiting gentlewoman, housekeeper, and tyrannical dictatrix of the whole establishment.
- 1871, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 32, in My Wife and I[2], Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, page 340:
- Prudent mammas were generally of opinion that the height of felicity for a daughter would be the position that should enable her to be the mistress and dictatrix of his ample fortune.
- 1937, Caroline Gordon, chapter 11, in The Garden of Adonis[3], New York: Cooper Square Publishers, published 1971, page 131:
- There is a young lady who is dictatrix—social dictatrix of Countsville. They run wherever she leads them.
- 1995 January, Thomas M. Disch, “The Lipstick on the Mirror”, in Poetry, page 192:
- the face of the distant / Sovereign began to melt and coalesce / With the faces of all women fair and rich: / Movie starlets, heiresses, cruel / Dictatrices, anchorwomen, teen murderesses / Able to sell their tales to Hollywood.
- 2011, Joanna Lumley, Absolutely,[4], London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, page 141:
- My part was Miralda Sumac, a murderous dictatrix who comes to a bad end.
- (archaic) A dictatorial entity personified as female; that which dictates.
- 1648, Jeremy Taylor, Treatises […] together with a sermon[5], London: R. Royston, dedicatory epistle, page 42:
- the Church of Rome which is the great dictatrix of dogmaticall resolutions, and the declarer of Heresy
- 1756, George Anderson, A Remonstrance against Lord Bolingbroke’s Philosophical Religion cited in a review in The Monthly Review, Volume 16, 1757, p. 240,[6]
- […] how can you […] plead a religious conscience as a dictatrix of what is morally good and evil, when you deny God’s moral attributes?
Synonyms edit
Latin edit
Etymology edit
From dictātor (“chief magistrate”); from dictō (“dictate, prescribe”) + -trīx, from dīcō (“say, speak”).
Pronunciation edit
- (Classical) IPA(key): /dikˈtaː.triːks/, [d̪ɪkˈt̪äːt̪riːks̠]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /dikˈta.triks/, [d̪ikˈt̪äːt̪riks]
Noun edit
dictātrīx f (genitive dictātrīcis); third declension
Declension edit
Third-declension noun.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | dictātrīx | dictātrīcēs |
| Genitive | dictātrīcis | dictātrīcum |
| Dative | dictātrīcī | dictātrīcibus |
| Accusative | dictātrīcem | dictātrīcēs |
| Ablative | dictātrīce | dictātrīcibus |
| Vocative | dictātrīx | dictātrīcēs |
Related terms edit
References edit
- “dictatrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- dictatrix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.