countess
noun
Simple meaning
A woman holding the rank of count or earl in her own right.
Pronunciation
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkaʊntɨs
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A woman holding the rank of count or earl in her own right; a female holder of an earldom.
“Elizabeth Millicent Leveson-Gower is 24th Countess of Sutherland; her son will be the 25th Earl.”
The wife of a count or earl.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A woman holding the rank of count or earl in her own right; a female holder of an earldom.
Used this way, countess is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“Elizabeth Millicent Leveson-Gower is 24th Countess of Sutherland; her son will be the 25th Earl.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “countess of …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: countess of …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.