princess

   This would not be used as a vocative to a member of the British royal family who was a princess by title (‘your royal highness’ or ‘Ma’am’ would be usual), but it might be used to a foreign princess. Examples of such usage occur in Daughters of MuIberry, by Roger Longrigg, ‘Principessa’ and ‘Madame la princesse’ occurring in the same novel.

   In modern use, ‘princess’ would be used by, e.g., a father to his daughter as a term of affection similar to ‘sweetheart’. It is used by American men to women in Eustace Chisholm and his Works, by James Purdie and The Late Risers, by Bernard Wolfe. In the latter book the speaker is a policeman who also addresses the woman concerned as ‘lady’.

   ‘Princess’ has long been used as a flattering term of address to a woman who is not strictly entitled to the title. ‘Cesario is your servant’s name, fair princess’ says Viola (disguised as a young man) to Olivia, in Twelfth Night Olivia questions his use of the word ‘servant’, but accepts ‘princess’ as her right, though she is normally described as a countess.

   Perhaps a better-known literary princess, though a more specialized example of one, occurs in The Silent Woman, by Ben Jonson. Captain Otter in that play invariably calls his wife ‘good princess’, ‘sweet princess’, ‘dear princess’, and the like to her face, though behind her back he tells his friends that he has no wife: ‘I confess, gentlemen, I have a cook, a laundress, a house-drudge, that serves my necessary turns.’ Mrs Otter, who actually rules the roost, explains at one point why she is entitled to be addressed by her husband as ‘princess’, having agreed, ‘when I married you…I would be princess, and reign in my own house; and you would be my subject, and obey me.’ In The Diviners, by Margaret Laurence, ‘Prin’ occurs as a vocative. It is a short form of ‘Princess’, the first name of one of the characters.