duchessdom
English edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
duchessdom (countable and uncountable, plural duchessdoms)
- The condition or title of a duchess.
- 1860, Anthony Trollope, “Two Witnesses”, in Castle Richmond. A Novel. (Collection of British Authors; Tauchnitz Edition; volume 520), volume I, Leipzig: [Christian] Bernhard Tauchnitz, page 308:
- She had a certain grandeur about her cap, and a majestical set about the skirt of her dress, and a rigour in the lines of her mouth, which indicated a habit of command, and a confidence in her own dignity, which might be supposed to be the very clearest attribute of duchessdom.
- 1894, John Kendrick Bangs, “The Spectre Cook of Bangletop”, in The Water Ghost and Others, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers Publishers, page 98:
- “No, no; purchase a dukedom.” “I don’t want a dukedom; I want a duchessdom.” “That’s all right. Buy the title, give it to the cook, and let her marry some spectre of her own rank; she can give him the title; and there you are!”
- 1993, Marion Mainwaring, The Buccaneers, Viking, →ISBN, page 402:
- Believe me, if Nan had liked duchessdom, none of this would be taking place.
- A region ruled by a duchess.
- 1945, Douglas Reed, The Next Horizon: or, Yeomans’ Progress, London: Jonathan Cape, […], chapter 23, page 209:
- The buskers gathered expectantly at their table, and presently the two came in, he who had thought a kingdom well lost for love, and she who had gained a duchessdom by it.
- 1998, Marina Yaguello, Trevor Harris, “The Miser and the Prodigal Son: Lexical meaning”, in Language Through the Looking Glass: Exploring Language and Linguistics, Oxford University Press, adaptation from of Alice au pays du langage: [Pour comprendre la linguistique] by Marina Yaguello, →ISBN, page 147:
- Astride his trusty equine colleague, he went from kingdom to queendom and from dukedom to duchessdom, asking for names and phone numbers.
- 2017, Karin Roffman, “Blue Mountain (1936–1940)”, in The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery’s Early Life, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 38:
- The children spent more time in their imaginary “kingdoms, empires, domains, dukedoms, and marquisdoms … and—oh yes! Duchessdoms,” and talked for hours about what to name their castles and realms.