mistress

   The earliest meaning of ‘mistress’ was a female master, a master-ess. In its sense of ‘mistress of a household’ the word developed into modern ‘Mrs’, or ‘missis’ as it is pronounced. A short form of the word also gave rise to ‘Miss’. The earlier usage where ‘Mistress’ was used as a term of address in its own right, or as a prefixed title followed by a last name, as an address form to any woman or unmarried girl, is retained in Scotland. Examples of such usage occur in Geordie, by David Storey and Whisky Calore, by Compton Mackenzie. In the latter novel a Cockney woman who is addressed by a Scotsman as ‘Mistress Odd’ makes a point of saying that she likes that form of address.

   The term survived more generally until the nineteenth century. ‘Did you speak, Mis’ess Anne?’ says Festus Derriman to Anne Garland, in Thomas Hardy’s The Trumpet Major. ‘Mistress’ on its own occurs vocatively in Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë. In the Shakespeare plays ‘Mistress’ is well used, normally on its own, but also in expressions such as ‘noble mistress’, ‘proud mistress’, ‘gentle mistress’, etc. Shakespeare uses the word as a normal social title to married and unmarried women, and also has characters address those who are mistress of their hearts. The ‘illicit wife’ sense of ‘mistress’ has been in use since the fifteenth century. This looms larger in the modern consciousness thanks to the splitting away of ‘Mrs’ and ‘Miss’ as separate words.