Mistress
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): ( n.) A married woman; a wife.
(2): ( n.) The old name of the jack at bowls.
(3): ( v. i.) To wait upon a mistress; to be courting.
(4): ( n.) A woman regarded with love and devotion; she who has command over one's heart; a beloved object; a sweetheart.
(5): ( n.) A woman filling the place, but without the rights, of a wife; a concubine; a loose woman with whom one consorts habitually.
(6): ( n.) A woman having power, authority, or ownership; a woman who exercises authority, is chief, etc.; the female head of a family, a school, etc.
(7): ( n.) A title of courtesy formerly prefixed to the name of a woman, married or unmarried, but now superseded by the contracted forms, Mrs., for a married, and Miss, for an unmarried, woman.
(8): ( n.) A woman well skilled in anything, or having the mastery over it.
King James Dictionary [2]
MIS'TRESS, n. L. magistra.
1. A woman who governs correlative to servant, slave, or subject.
My mistress here lies murdered in her bed.
2. The female head of a family. 3. That which governs a sovereign. Rome was mistress of the world. 4. One that commands, or has possession and sovereignty. The queen is mistress of the Indies. 5. A female who is well skilled in any thing as, she is mistress of arithmetic. 6. A woman teacher an instructress of a school. 7. A woman beloved and courted. 8. A woman in keeping for lewd purposes. 9. A term of contemptuous address.
MIS'TRESS, To wait upon a mistress to be courting.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [3]
mis´tres ( בּעלה , ba‛ălāh , גּברת , gebhereth ): Is the translation of ba‛ălāh , "lady," "owner" ( 1 Kings 17:17; Nahum 3:4 ); in 1 Samuel 28:7 , "a woman that hath a familiar spirit" is literally, "the mistress of a familiar spirit"; of gebhereth ( Genesis 16:4 , Genesis 16:8 , Genesis 16:9; 2 Kings 5:3; Psalm 123:2; Proverbs 30:23; Isaiah 24:2 ); in Isaiah 47:5 , Isaiah 47:7 , we have the King James Version and the English Revised Version "lady," the American Standard Revised Version "mistress."
