dictatrix

English

Etymology

From Latin dictatrix.

Noun

dictatrix (plural dictatrices)

1. 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.

2. (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

• dictatress

Latin

Etymology

From dictātor (“chief magistrate”); from dictō (“dictate, prescribe”) +‎ -trīx, from dīcō (“say, speak”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /dikˈtaː.triːks/, [d̪ɪkˈt̪äːt̪riːks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /dikˈta.triks/, [d̪ikˈt̪äːt̪riks]

Noun

dictātrīx f (genitive dictātrīcis); third declension

1. (humorous) woman in charge
   • c. 197 BCE, Plautus, Persa V.1:

     Do hanc tibi florentem (mensam) florenti.
     tu hic eris dictatrix nobis.

     I give to your blooming self this copious meal.
     you shall here be master upon us.

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	dictātrīx	dictātrīcēs
genitive	dictātrīcis	dictātrīcum
dative	dictātrīcī	dictātrīcibus
accusative	dictātrīcem	dictātrīcēs
ablative	dictātrīce	dictātrīcibus
vocative	dictātrīx	dictātrīcēs

Related terms

• dīcō
• dictāmen
• dictātiō
• dictātor
• dictātōrius
• dictātūra
• dictō
• dictum
• dictus

References

• “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.