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duchess

noun · verb

Simple meaning

The wife of a duke or a woman holding ducal title in her own right.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

duhchuhs

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈdʌtʃəs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The wife of a duke or a woman holding ducal title in her own right

  2. The wife or widow of a duke.

  3. The female ruler of a duchy.

verb

  1. Australiainformal

    To court or curry favour for political or business advantage; to flatter obsequiously.

Word at a Glance

Frequency
Uncommon

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Wife

dowager duchesslady duchess

Other combinations

last duchessyoung duchesslate duchessbeautiful duchessdear duchessnew duchess

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • duchess of windsornounCompound term

    United States divorcee whose marriage to Edward VIII created a constitutional crisis leading to his abdication.

  • grand duchessnounCompound term

    The wife of a grand duke or a woman holding that rank in her own right.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.