Mistress

Mistress (pronounced mis-tris)

(1) A woman who has authority, control, or power, especially the female head of a household, institution, or other establishment; a woman employing, or in authority over, servants or attendants.

(2) A female owner of an animal or formerly, a slave.

(3) A woman who has the power of controlling or disposing of something at her own pleasure; the companion term to master (sometimes initial capital letter).

(4) A woman who has a continuing, extramarital sexual relationship with one man, especially a man who, in return for a continuing (and hopefully exclusive) liaison, provides her with financial support.

(5) A senior female schoolteacher; a schoolmistress, a unique New Zealand form of which was Senior Assistant Mistress (SAM), the highest teaching position (ranking below assistant principle (or headmaster)) available to women until the mid-1970s.

(6) A term of address in former use and corresponding to Mrs, Miss, or Ms (should be with initial capital letter but often misused).

(7) A dialectical word for sweetheart (archaic).

(8) The term for a woman who specializes in the niche BDSM (a abbrevation traditionally of "bondage, discipline & sadism masochism" (in modern use dominance & submission sometimes also added or substituted) market, female equivalent of a master in the same context; a dominatrix.

(9) A married woman; a wife (archaic Scots dialectal form).

(10) A title (either official or courtesy) granted to certain positions in royal households or religious orders (eg Mistress of the Robes, Mistress of the Cloisters et al).

(11) In the games of bowls, the jack (obsolete).  

1275–1325: From the Middle English maistresse from the Old & Middle French maistresse (maîtresse in modern French), feminine of  maistre (master), from the Latin magister (chief, head, director, teacher) the construct being maistre (master) + -esse or –ess (the suffix which denotes a female form of otherwise male nouns denoting beings or persons).  In yet another example of the patriarchal domination of language, when a woman is said to have acquired complete knowledge of or skill in something, she’s said to have “mastered” the topic.  Mistress is a noun and verb, mistressship (or mistress-ship), mistresspiece,  mistresshood & mistressdom are nouns, mistressing is a verb and mistressly is an adjective; the noun plural is mistresses.  The noun plural mistresses has been used by many and the pragmatic advice is mistresses should be enjoyed sequentially rather than concurrently.  That said, plenty who have had the odd mistress might reflect things would have been better had they followed the advice of the English poet Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861), published in The Latest Decalogue (1862):  Do not adultery commit; Advantage rarely comes of it.

In English, the original meaning (circa 1300) was "a female teacher, governess; supervisor of novices in a convent", reflecting the senses in the Old French maistresse although in the Old French it could be used to mean also "lover" & "housekeeper" (though there would have been some overlap in those roles).  The notion of a mistress being a "a woman who employs others or has authority over a household and servants" developed in the early fifteenth century, the use to describe "a woman who has mastered an art or branch of study" emerging some decades later.  The familiar modern sense of "a kept woman maintained by a married man" dates from the early fifteenth century and, perhaps surprisingly, by the mid-1600s it was used as a polite form of address to a woman, a extension presumably of a sense other than adulterous women.  The meaning "woman who is beloved and courted, one who has command over a lover's heart" is from the turn of the fifteen century.

Thought crime

Associated Press (AP) tweeted in early May 2020 it would no longer use the term “mistress” to describe adulterous women, noting it thought the word “archaic and sexist”, preferring the alternatives “companion” or “lover”, adding the AP Stylebook had been updated to include this proscription among some two-hundred changes.  The AP Stylebook has for generations been a standard reference for many news organizations, often referred to by working journalists as the “style bible” and widely used in journalism courses.

Barnaby reflects: Vikki Campion (b 1985) & Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice deputy prime-minister of Australia 2016-2022).

Linguistically, AP’s attempt to avoid hurting the feelings of adulterers isn’t a great deal of help, banning as it does a word with a precise meaning, well-understood for centuries, replacing it with terms ambiguous or misleading; there’s no other single word (or term of convenient brevity) which conveys the same meaning of “mistress” in the sense which so disturbs AP.  The revisions make much of the need to adopt “gender-neutral language”, another “inclusive” transformation being the pursuit of criminals at large will no longer be “manhunts” but rather “searches”, a further example of dilution of meaning, an unfortunate trend for a news organization to pursue.  AP are correct that “mistress” is both “loaded” and “gendered” given there’s no similarly opprobrious term for adulterous men but the word is not archaic; archaic words are those now rare to the point of being no longer in general use and “mistress” has hardly suffered that fate.  AP’s agenda appears to be the creation of doctrinaire neutrality and are constructing their own newspeak to save its readers from their own thought crime.

Ashley Horn before (left) & after (centre) and Lindsay Lohan (right).

Ashley Horn (b 1995) is Lindsay Lohan's half sister, her father being Michael Lohan (b 1969), her mother, Kristi Kaufmann Horn (b 1963), a Montana massage therapist who briefly was Michael Lohan's mistress.  In 2013 it was reported by In Touch Magazine (a famously reliable source) that Ms Horn had paid some US$25,000 on five rounds of cosmetic surgery with the intention of more closely resembling her older half-sister.  As detailed by Ms Horn, she had "...rhinoplasty, a bit of refinement underneath my cheeks and jawline, some fat injected into my chin and some fat injected into my upper cheeks", the specific instruction being to emulate Lindsay Lohan's look in her late teen-age years, Ms Horn's age at the time.

Inamorata

Inamorata (pronounced in-am-uh-rah-tuh or in-am-uh-rah-tuh)

A woman with whom one is in love; a female lover

1645-1655: From the Italian innamorata (mistress, sweetheart), noun use of the feminine form of innamorato (the noun plural innamoratos or innamorati) (lover, boyfriend), past principle of innamorare (to inflame with love), the construct being in- (in) + amore (love), from the Latin amor.  A familiar modern variation is enamor.  Inamorata is a noun; the noun plural is inamoratas.

Words like inamorata litter English and endure in their niches, not just because poets find them helpful but because they can be used to convey subtle nuances in a way a word which appears synonymous might obscure.  One might think the matter of one’s female lover might be linguistically (and sequentially) covered by (1) girlfriend, (2) fiancé, (3) wife and (4) mistress but to limit things to those is to miss splitting a few hairs.

A man’s girlfriend is a romantic partner though not of necessity a sexual one because some religions expressly prohibit such things without benefit of marriage and there are the faithful who follow these teachings.  One can have as many girlfriends as one can manage but the expectation they should be enjoyed one at a time.  Women can have girlfriends too but (usually) they are “friends who are female” rather than anything more except of course among lesbians where the relationship is the same as with men.  Gay men too have girlfriends who are “female friends”, some of whom may be “fag hags” a term which now is generally a homophobic slur unless used within the LGB factions of the LGBTQQIAAOP community where it can be jocular or affectionate.

A fiancé is a women to whom one is engaged to be married, in many jurisdictions once a matter of legal significance because an offer of marriage could be enforced under the rules of contract law.  While common law courts didn’t go as far as ordering “specific performance of the contract”, they would award damages on the basis of a “breach of promise”, provided it could be adduced that three of the four essential elements of a contract existed: (1) offer, (2) certainty of terms and (3) acceptance.  The fourth component: (4) consideration (ie payment), wasn’t mentioned because it was assumed to be implicit in the nature of the exchange; a kind of deferred payment as it were.  It was one of those rarities in common law where things operated almost wholly in favor of women in that they could sue a man who changed his mind while they were free to break-off an engagement without fear of legal consequences though there could be social and familial disapprobation.  Throughout the English-speaking world, the breach of promise tort in marriage matters has almost wholly been abolished, remaining on the books in the a couple of US states (not all of which lie south of the Mason-Dixon Line) but even where it exists it’s now a rare action and one likely to succeed only in exceptional circumstances or where a particularly fragrant plaintiff manages to charm a particularly sympathetic judge.

The spelling fiancé (often as fiance) is now common for all purposes.  English borrowed both the masculine (fiancé) and feminine (fiancée) from the French verb fiancer (to get engaged) in the mid nineteenth century and that both spellings were used is an indication it was one of those forms which was, as an affectation, kept deliberately foreign because English typically doesn’t use gendered endings. Both the French forms were ultimately from the Classical Latin fidare (to trust), a form familiar in law and finance in the word fiduciary, from the Latin fīdūciārius (held in trust), from fīdūcia (trust) which, as a noun & adjective, describes relationships between individuals and entities which rely on good faith and accountability.  Pronunciation of both fiancé and fiancée is identical so the use of the differentiated forms faded by the late twentieth century and even publications like Country Life and Tattler which like writing with class-identifiers seem to have updated.  Anyway, because English doesn’t have word endings that connote gender, differentiating between the male and the female betrothed would seem unfashionable in the age of gender fluidity but identities exist as they’re asserted and one form or the other might be deployed as a political statement by all sides in the gender wars.

Model Emily Ratajkowski's (b 1991) clothing label is called Inamorata, a clever allusion to her blended nickname EmRata.  This is Ms Ratajkowski showing Inamorata’s polka-dot line in three aspects.

Wife was from the Middle English wyf & wif, from the Old English wīf (woman, wife), from the Proto-West Germanic wīb, from the Proto-Germanic wībą (woman, wife) and similar forms existed as cognates in many European languages.  The wife was the woman one had married and by the early twentieth century, in almost all common law jurisdictions (except those where systems of tribal law co-existed) it was (more or less) demanded one may have but one at a time.  Modern variations include “common-law wife” and the “de-facto wife”.  The common-law marriage (also known as the "sui iuris (from the Latin and literally “of one's own right”) marriage", the “informal marriage” and the “non-ceremonial marriage”) is a kind of legal quasi-fiction whereby certain circumstances can be treated as a marriage for many purposes even though no formal documents have been registered, all cases assessed on their merits.  Although most Christian churches don’t long dwell on the matter, this is essentially what marriage in many cases was before the institutional church carved out its role.  In popular culture the term is used loosely to refer sometimes just about any un-married co-habitants regardless of whether or not the status has been acknowledged by a court.  De facto was from the Latin de facto, the construct being dē (from, by) + the ablative of factum (fact, deed, act).  It translates as “in practice, what actually is regardless of official or legal status” and is thus differentiated from de jure, the construct being dē (from) + iūre (law) which describes something’s legal status.  In general use, a common-law wife and de facto wife are often thought the same thing but the latter differs that in some jurisdictions the parameters which define the status are codified in statute whereas a common law wife can be one declared by a court on the basis of evidence adduced.

Mistress dates from 1275–1325 and was from the Middle English maistresse, from the Old & Middle French maistresse (in Modern French maîtresse), feminine of maistre (master), the construct being maistre (master) + -esse or –ess (the suffix which denotes a female form of otherwise male nouns denoting beings or persons), the now rare derived forms including the adjective mistressed and the noun mistressship.  In an example of the patriarchal domination of language, when a woman was said to have acquired complete knowledge of or skill in something, she’s was said to have “mastered” the topic.  A mistress (in this context) was a woman who had a continuing, extramarital sexual relationship with one man, especially a man who, in return for an exclusive and continuing liaison, provides her with financial support.  The term (like many) has become controversial and critics (not all of them feminists) have labeled it “archaic and sexist”, suggesting the alternatives “companion” or “lover” but neither convey exactly the state of the relationship so mistress continues to endure.  The critics have a point in that mistress is both “loaded” and “gendered” given there’s no similarly opprobrious term for adulterous men but the word is not archaic; archaic words are those now rare to the point of being no longer in general use and “mistress” has hardly suffered that fate, thought-crime hard to stamp out.

This is Ms Ratajkowski showing Inamorata’s polka-dot line in another three aspects.

Inamorata was useful because while it had a whiff of the illicit, that wasn’t always true but what it did always denote was a relationship of genuine love whatever the basis so one’s inamorata could also be one’s girlfriend, fiancé or mistress though perhaps not one’s wife, however fond one might be of her.  An inamorata would be a particular flavor of mistress in the way paramour or leman didn't imply.  Paramour was from the Middle English paramour, paramoure, peramour & paramur, from the Old French par amor (literally “for love's sake”), the modern pronunciation apparently an early Modern English re-adaptation of the French and a paramour was a mistress, the choice between the two perhaps influenced by the former tending to the euphemistic.  The archaic leman is now so obscure that it tends to be used only by the learned as a term of disparagement against women in the same way a suggestion mendaciousness is thought a genteel way to call someone a liar.  Dating from 1175-1225, it was from the Middle English lemman, a variant of leofman, from the Old English lēofmann (lover; sweetheart (and attested also as a personal name)), the construct being lief +‎ man (beloved person).  Lief was from the Middle English leef, leve & lef, from the Old English lēof (dear), from the Proto-Germanic leubaz and was cognate with the Saterland Frisian ljo & ljoo, the West Frisian leaf, the Dutch lief, the Low German leev, the German lieb, the Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk ljuv, the Gothic liufs, the Russian любо́вь (ljubóv) and the Polish luby.  Man is from the Middle English man, from the Old English mann (human being, person, man), from the Proto-Germanic mann (human being, man) and probably ultimately from the primitive Indo-European mon (man).  A linguistic relic, leman applied originally either to men or women and had something of a romantic range.  It could mean someone of whom one was very fond or something more although usage meant the meaning quickly drifted to the latter: someone's sweetheart or paramour.  In the narrow technical sense it could still be applied to men although it has for so long been a deliberate archaic device and limited to women, that would now just confuse.

About the concubine, while there was a tangled history, there has never been much confusion.  Dating from 1250-1300, concubine was from the Middle English concubine (a paramour, a woman who cohabits with a man without being married to him) from the Anglo-Norman concubine, from the Latin concubīna, derived from cubare (to lie down), the construct being concub- (variant stem of concumbere & concumbō (to lie together)) + -ina (the feminine suffix).  The status (a woman who cohabits with a man without benefit of marriage) existed in Hebrew, Greek, Roman and other civilizations, the position sometimes recognized in law as "wife of inferior condition, secondary wife" and there’s much evidence of long periods of tolerance by religious authorities, extended both to priests and the laity.  The concubine of a priest was sometimes called a priestess although this title was wholly honorary and of no religious significance although presumably, as a vicar's wife might fulfil some role in the parish, they might have been delegated to do this and that.

Once were inamoratas: Lindsay Lohan with former special friend Samantha Ronson, barefoot in Los Cabos, Mexico, 2008.

Under Roman civil law, the parties were the concubina (female) and the concubinus (masculine).  Usually, the concubine was of a lower social order but the institution, though ranking below matrimonium (marriage) was a cut above adulterium (adultery) and certainly more respectable than stuprum (illicit sexual intercourse, literally "disgrace" from stupere (to be stunned, stupefied)) and not criminally sanctioned like rapere (“sexually to violate” from raptus, past participle of rapere, which when used as a noun meant "a seizure, plundering, abduction").  In Medieval Latin it also meant meant also "forcible violation" & "kidnapping" and a misunderstanding of the context in which the word was then used has caused problems in translation ever since .  Concubinage is, in the West, a term largely of historic interest.  It describes a relationship in which a woman engages in an ongoing conjugal relationship with a man to whom she is not or cannot be married to the full extent of the local meaning of marriage.  This may be due to differences in social rank, an existing marriage, religious prohibitions, professional restrictions, or a lack of recognition by the relevant authorities.  Historically, concubinage was often entered into voluntarily because of an economic imperative.  In the modern vernacular, wives use many words to describe their husbands’ mistress(es).  They rarely use concubine.  They might however be tempted to use courtesan which was from the French courtisane, from the Italian cortigiana, feminine of cortigiano (courtier), from corte (court), from the Latin cohors.  A courtesan was a prostitute but a high-priced one who attended only to rich or influential clients and the origin of the term was when it was used of the mistresses of kings or the nobles in the court, the word mistress too vulgar to be used in such circles.

Chatelaine

Chatelaine (pronounced shat-l-eyn or shahtuh-len (French))

(1) The wife of a castellan; mistress of a château or castle.

(2) The mistress of an elegant or fashionable household.

(3) A hook-like clasp or a chain for suspending keys, trinkets, scissors, a watch, etc, worn at the waist by women.

(4) A woman's decorative lapel pendant or other ornament resembling this.

(5) Historic legal slang for a sub-set of acquisitive wives for whom the business of divorce is something of a calling (now rare). 

1845: From the French châtelaine (a female castellan; wife of a castellan; mistress of a castle or château (country house)), the feminine form of châtelain (castle-keeper, one living in a castle) from the Old French chastelain (owner and lord of a castle, nobleman; keeper of a castle), from the Medieval Latin castellanus (occupants of a castle), the construct being castell(um) (castle, fort (chastel in French)) (diminutive of castrum (castle, fort) from the primitive Indo-European ḱes (to cut off, separate)) + -ānus (the suffix demoting “of or pertaining to”).  The use of the masculine equivalent in this context was rare because of historic social and economic structures.  In fashion, as a type of ornamental (though originally functional) piece, use dates from 1851; the idea being a piece which resembles the chain of keys a chatelaine would wear.

Gold digging

In the slang of English divorce lawyers, chatelaine was a term for a sub-set of husband-hunting women for whom the most important criterion in their search was the quality of the house which came with the subject, the play on words based on the ancient role of the chatelaine being the "the keeper of the castle".  Applied mostly either to the impoverished gentry or aspirational young ladies seeking upward-mobility, chatelaines were famously good "housekeepers"; after the divorce they often "kept the house".  The more accessible modern form is gold-digger.  An exemplar of the type was the admirable Norah Docker (Lady Docker, née Turner; 1906–1983) a dance-club hostess who was thrice-married, each husband proving more lucrative than the last.  Her most famous acquisition was Sir Bernard Docker (1896–1978), chairman of the Daimler motor company for which she helped design half a dozen cars; known as the Docker Daimlers, they were an acquired taste but certainly large and conspicuous as intended, each generating much publicity though it's doubtful they made any positive contribution to Daimler's bottom line.  Some of the more generous critics were prepared to concede some weren't as bad as the others. 

1955 Daimler DK400 Golden Zebra

The last of the Docker Daimlers, the Golden Zebra was a two-door fixed head coupé (FHC) with coachwork by Hooper, built on the existing DK400 chassis.  The interior was finished with an African theme, the dashboard of ivory and the upholstery in zebra-skin while external metal trim was gold-plated.  Lady Docker personally chose the zebra skin, claiming mink was unpleasantly hot.  It was first shown at the 1955 Paris Motor Show, the French apparently appalled and it's of note this stylistic relic appeared in the same building used for the debut of the Citroën DS.   

1885 English Solid Silver Chatelaine.

The decorative belt hook or clasp worn was at the waist with a series of chains suspended from it, a design dating from antiquity when they were a convenient way of carrying useful household tools.  By the nineteenth century, in respectable households the chatelaine displayed the status of women in a household and the one with the keys to the desks and other locked cabinets was "the woman of the household".  She was the one to direct the servants and tradesmen and lock or lock the valuables of the house, possessing total authority over who had access to what.  When a woman married and moved into her father-in-law's house, the mother-in-law would often hold on to the keys but upon widowhood, they were usually passed to the oldest son's wife, status transferring with the keys.  Better to show-off this prestige, chatelaines became increasingly elaborate and expensive.  In larger houses with a full complement of servants, a similar hierarchy existed and the controller of the keys was the most senior female of the downstairs staff.

Adultery

Adultery (pronounced uh-duhl-tuh-ree)

Voluntary sexual intimacy between a married person and someone other than his or her lawful spouse.

1325-1375: From the Middle English adulterie, from the Classical Latin adulterium (voluntary violation of the marriage bed).  Adulterie replaced an earlier Middle English form advouterie, drawn from the Old French avoutrie.  So, construct was: adulterie, altered (as if directly from Latin adulterium) from avoutrie, via Old French from Latin adulterium, from adulter, back formation from adulterāre.  Modern spelling, with the re-inserted -d, is from early fifteenth century.  Interestingly, in Middle English, word also applied even to "sex between husband and wife for recreational purposes”, sex for other than procreation being regarded by the church as idolatry, perversion and heresy.  The church variously classified the sin as single adultery (with an unmarried person) and double adultery (with a married person).  In Old English the word was æwbryce (breach of lawful marriage), drawn from the German Ehebruch.  As one might imagine, the tradition of adultery goes way back and so does the condemnation by clerics and others; it is of course proscribed by one of the Ten Commandments (coming in usually at 6 or 7 in most translations) in the Christian Bible and the ever zealous Leviticus (at 20:10) spelled out the consequences: If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

In the US, Adultery Dune in Arizona corresponds to the Navajo sei adilehe (adultery sand), the place where, prior to European settlement, illicit lovers met.  It’s apparently something between Hampstead Heath and Death Valley as depicted in Michelangelo Antonioni’s (1912-2007) Zabriskie Point (1970).  Everyone should see Zabriskie Point before they die.

Double Adultery: Cheryl Kernot & Gareth Evans.

Although adultery can be a difficult, complicated business, two avoid things ending badly, there are really two options.  One is not to commit adultery because, in the words of  English author, Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), "advantage rarely comes of it."  Option two is not to get caught but there is a long list of politicians who made the greatest mistake of all: getting caught.  Although adultery seemed once almost obligatory (and once also tolerated) for French politicians great and humble, in the English-speaking world, it's always a scandal.  Of late, we’ve had the helpfully named Anthony Weiner (b 1964), Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) who had only himself to blame and Sir John Major (b 1943; UK prime-minister 1990-1997) who really must be admired; an affair with Edwina Currie (b 1946) hardly being safe-sex.  Jim Cairns (1914–2003) perjured himself while lying about his affair and John Profumo (1915–2006) committed adultery with Christine Keeler (1942–2017) while she was enjoying another adulterous affair with a Russian spy.  While leader of the opposition, Ben Chifley (1885–1951; prime minister of Australia 1945 to 1949) told the prime-minister he was going home to read a detective story, dying that night in the company of his mistress; men wept at the news of his death.  John Kennedy's (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) adultery was (within the beltway), famous even at the time and David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) blatantly took his mistress to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; one author claimed even the long-assumed faithful Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) may have strayed.  Doing his bit, Gareth Evans (b 1944; Australian Labor Party (ALP) senator or MP 1978-1999, sometime attorney-general & foreign minister) had an affair with then Democrats leader Cheryl Kernot (b 1948) who subsequently rated on them and joined the ALP although whether that was because or in spite of Gareth’s adulterous caresses has never been clear.

End of the line for Sir Billy Snedden.

Most illustrious are those said to have died on the job, expiring usually in hotel rooms following heart-attacks or strokes.  The list includes the 70 year old Nelson Rockefeller (1908-1979; US vice-president 1974-1977) who was with a 25 year old aide and the 76 year old Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) who was in the company of an admirer of 37.  Lord Palmerston (1784-1865; variously UK prime-minister or foreign secretary on several occasions 1830-1865) is rumoured to have died on a billiard table with a housemaid and Pope John XII (circa 933–964; pope 955-964) is said to have died in circumstances not dissimilar.  Famously, Sir Billy Snedden (1926–1987), at 61, breathed his last in a Travelodge at Sydney's Rushcutter’s Bay with a somewhat younger woman who was his son’s ex-girlfriend, an event recorded by what was perhaps the Melbourne Truth's most memorable front page.  Remarkably, despite decades of speculation, her identity has never publicly been confirmed.

Former Australian Country Party leader Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022).

Mr Joyce joined a long line of adulterous politicians who made the greatest mistake of all: getting caught.  He's pictured here escorting wife to the parliament's mid-winter ball (left) and casting his mistress an admiring glance (right).  The whip he carried was thought a photo-opportunity prop, an allusion to his role as a rural member of the house of representatives rather than an indication of any proclivities.

Leman

Leman (pronounced lem-uhn or lee-muhn)

(1) A sweetheart; lover; beloved.

(2) A mistress.

(3) As Lac Léman, the French name for Lake Geneva.

1175-1225: From the Middle English lemman (loved one of the opposite sex; paramour, lover; wife (and also (1) "a spiritually beloved one; redeemed soul, believer in Christ; female saint devoted to chastity; God, Christ, the Virgin Mary" & (2) "a term of intimate address to a friend or lover")), variant of leofman, from the Old English lēofmann (lover; sweetheart; attested as a personal name), the construct being lief +‎ man (beloved person).  Lief was from the Middle English leef, leve & lef, from the Old English lēof (dear), from the Proto-Germanic leubaz.  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian ljo & ljoo, the West Frisian leaf, the Dutch lief, the Low German leev, the German lieb, the Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk ljuv, the Gothic liufs, the Russian любо́вь (ljubóv) and the Polish luby.  Man is from the Middle English man, from the Old English mann (human being, person, man), from the Proto-Germanic mann (human being, man) and probably ultimately from the primitive Indo-European man or mon (man).  The origins of the use of "Dear" as a salutation in letters (a convention some preserve in email though apparently not in other digital comms) is thought derived ultimately from the the Old English leofman (the construct being leof (dear) + man) as a term of intimate address to a friend or lover.

Bader Shammas and his leman.

A linguistic relic, leman applied originally either to men or women and had something of a romantic range.  It could mean someone of whom one was very fond or something more although usage meant the meaning quickly tended to the latter; a sweetheart or paramour.  In the narrow technical sense it could still be applied to men although it has for so long been a deliberate archaic device and limited to women, it would be confusing.  It tends now to be used as a term of disparagement against women in the same way a suggestion of the mendacious is thought a genteel way to call someone a liar.  In early-modern English, alternative spellings did emerge, lemman between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries and remarkably, lemon in the fifteenth and sixteenth.  No explanation for lemon in this context has emerged and it may have been an imperfect echoic.  The word certainly had a curious path on its way to obscurity, beginning as meaning "one's beloved", it came to be applied to God, Christ, the Blessed Virgin and other notables of Christianity before being specifically re-purposed around the turn of the fourteenth century to mean "one's betrothed" yet by the late 1500s it had acquired the  at the turn of the sense of a "concubine or mistress".   

The Faerie Queene (1590) by Edmund Spenser (circa 1552-1599)

Woodcut illustration for Book II (Cantos VII-XII) of the Faerie Queene.

As long ago as the late sixteenth century, leman was rare word, supplanted by other forms, some gender-specific.  However, that very quality of the obsolescent made it attractive as a literary device for those seeking some historic flavor, the use exemplified in The Faerie Queene, an epic-length poem recounting tales of knightly exploits.  Written in a deliberately archaic style, Spenser merged history and myth, drawing especially on the Arthurian legends with each of the books an allegorical following of a knight who represents a particular virtue (holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy) which will be tested by the plot.  It’s long been of interest to Shakespearean scholars because book two appears to be a source for much of King Lear.  It’s also attracted the attention of feminist critics.

Such is the crueltie of womenkynd,
When they have shaken off the shamefast band,
With which wise Nature did them strongly bynd,
T’obay the heasts of mans well ruling hand,
That then all rule and reason they withstand,
To purchase a licentious libertie.
But virtuous women wisely understand,
That they were borne to base humilitie,
Unlesse the heavens them lift to lawfull soveraintie. (Book five) 

The poem is unfinished: Spenser planned twelve books but only six were completed, a seventh left incomplete.

Faire Venus seemde vnto his bed to bring

Her, whom he waking euermore did weene

To be the chastest flowre, that ay did spring

On earthly braunch, the daughter of a king,

Now a loose Leman to vile seruice bound. (Book one)

Tyrannicide

Tyrannicide (pronounced ti-ran-uh-sahyd or tahy- ran-uh-sahyd)

(1) The act of killing a tyrant.

(2) A person who kills a tyrant.

1640-1650: From the French tyrannicide, from the Latin tyrrannicīdium & tyrannicīda, the construct being tryant +‎ -cide.  Tryant was from the Middle English ttyraun, tiraunt, tyrant & tyrante, from the Old French tyrant, constructed with the addition of a terminal -t to tiran (from the Middle French tyran (a tryant or bully), from the Latin tyrannus (despot (source also of the Spanish tirano and the Italian tiranno)), from the Ancient Greek τύραννος (túrannos) (usurper, monarch, despot) of uncertain origin but which some have speculated may be a loan -word from a language of Asia Minor (perhaps Lydian); some etymologists compare it to the Etruscan Turan (mistress, lady (and the surname of Venus)).  The evolutionary process was via a back-formation related to the development of French present participles out of the Latin -ans form, thus the unetymological spelling with -t arose in Old French by analogy with present-participle endings in -ant.  The feminine form tyranness seems first to have been documented in 1590, perhaps derived from the Medieval Latin tyrannissa, although whether this emerged from courtiers in palaces or husbands in more humble abodes isn’t recorded.  The plural was tryants.

In Archaic Greece, tryant was a technical rather than a casually descriptive term, applied to a usurper (one who gains power and rules extra-legally, distinguished from kings elevated by election or natural succession), something discussed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) in his landmark The Social Contract (1762) in which he noted “they applied it indifferently to good and bad princes whose authority was not legitimate”.  It’s now used to describe a despot; a ruler who governs unjustly, cruelly, or harshly and, by extension, any person in a position of authority who abuses the power of their position or office to treat others unjustly, cruelly, or harshly.  In Greece, a ruler (tyrannical or otherwise) was variously the archon, basileus or aisymnetes; an unjust ruler or superior is typically now called autocrat, dictator, despot or martinet.  What Rousseau didn’t dwell on was that while in the Greek tradition, the word was not applied to old hereditary sovereignties (basileiai) and despotic kings, it was used of usurpers, even when popular, moderate, and just (the most celebrated in the surviving histories being Cypselus of Corinth in the seventh century BC) but, presumably by unfortunate association, it soon became a word of reproach in the modern sense.  A hint of this may be found in the way in Greek theatre of the fourth century BC, cherished pathos in regard to tyrannicide.  The noun plural was tyrannicides.

The suffix –cide was from the From Middle French -cide, from the Latin -cīda (cutter, killer), from -cīdium (killing), from caedō (to cut, hew, kill) and was a noun-forming suffix denoting “an act of killing or a slaughter”, “one who kills” or “one who cuts” from the appropriate nouns stems.  In English, the alternative form was –icide.

Tyrannicide is a noun.  The adjective tyrannous (of tyrannical character) was from the late fifteenth century whereas the now more common adjective tyrannical dates from the 1530s from the Classical Latin tyrannicus (arbitrary, despotic), from the Ancient Greek tyrannikos (befitting a despot) from tyrannos.  The adjectival variation tyrannic was used in this sense from the late fifteenth century and the companion adverb was tyrannically.  The adjective tyrannicidal was a creation of the mid-1800s which gained a new popularity in the next century when examples abounded.  The late fourteenth century noun tyranny (cruel or unjust use of power; the government of a tyrant) was from the thirteenth century Old French tyranie, from the Late Latin tyrannia (tyranny), from the Ancient Greek tyrannia (rule of a tyrant, absolute power) from tyrannos (master).

The tyrannosaurus (carnivorous Cretaceous bipedal dinosaur) was named in 1905 and came to public attention the following year when US paleontologist, geologist (and enthusiastic eugenicist) Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857–1935) who coined the term, published his research in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, the construct being the Ancient Greek tyrannos + -saurus (from the Ancient Greek σαῦρος (saûros) (lizard, reptile)).  The now familiar abbreviation T-Rex appears not to have been used before 1970 when it was adopted as the name of a pop-group.  In the avian branch of zoology, tyrant birds are members of the family Tyrannidae, which often fight or drive off other birds which approach their nests which seems a bit of a slur.

In the early days of Antiquity, tyrannicide was a part of the political process and rather than being thought of as what would now be called a “criminal” act, it was just another method of transferring power.  As societies evolved and recognizable civilizations emerged from competing cultures, attitudes did change and tyrannicide began to be regarded as a form of murder which might be self-justifying depending on the context and the degree of tyranny eradicated although Aristotle did distinguish between those who committed tyrannicide for personal gain and those (rare) disinterested souls who did it for the good of the community.

However intricately philosophers and legal theorists added the layer of nuance, tyrannicide (many of which were of course also acts of regicide ("the killing of a king" (used also for assassinated queens, ruling princes etc) or "one who does the killing", from the Latin rēgis (king (genitive singular of rēx)) +‎ -cide (killer), patterned after suicide, tyrannicide etc) remained a popular and expedient way to hasten dynastic or political change.  It could be said the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) and established the principle that the religion a ruler choose to adopt for himself and his nation was a purely internal matter and not one to be changed by foreign intervention, represented the beginning of an international law which would come to outlaw the assassinations of rulers, tyrants or not.  That however is a retrospective view and not one at the time discussed.

Nor would legal niceties have been likely much to influence those who would wish to kill a tryant, some of whom have even claimed some justification under natural law.  Whether Brutus (85-42 BC) ever uttered the phrase Sic semper tyrannis (thus always to tyrants) after stabbing Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) or not (as the historian Plutarch (46-circa 122) maintained), it resonated through history, John Wilkes Booth, noting in his diary that he shouted "Sic semper tyrannis" after killing Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; US president 1861-1865) in 1865.  History doesn’t record if the words were on the lips of those who either attempted or succeeded in dispatching Adolf Hitler (1944), Benito Mussolini (1945), Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García (1956), the Dominican Republic’s dictator Rafael Trujillo (1961), South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee (1979), President Anwar Sadat of Egypt (1981), Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah (1996) & Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (2011), but it can be imagined they weren’t far from the assassins’ thoughts.

International law did however evolve to the point where the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons was presented in 1973, coming into force in 1977 and eventually ratified by 180 countries.  Although the convention was inspired by a spike in the assassination of diplomats in the early 1970s, the protection was extended to tyrants, the wording of the relevant clause being in Article 1a which declared that the ranks of “internationally protected persons” included:

A Head of State, including any member of a collegial body performing the functions of a Head of State under the constitution of the State concerned, a Head of Government or a Minister for Foreign Affairs, whenever any such person is in a foreign State, as well as members of his family who accompany him.

While it’s true Libya’s ratification of the convention didn’t save Colonel Gaddafi from becoming a victim of tyrannicide, he would at least have died knowing he was being assassinated in contravention of a UN convention.  Whether Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) was either explicitly calling for or hinting that an act of tyrannicide should be visited upon Vladimir Putin excited much interest recently when the US president labeled his Russian counterpart as a “butcher” who “cannot remain in power”.  It certainly could be construed as a call for Mr Putin’s “removal”, despite the White House in recent weeks having repeatedly emphasized that regime change in Russia is not US policy.  “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” Mr Biden said at the end of his speech in front of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, an unscripted sentiment he apparently added in the heat of the moment.

Methods of tyrannicide vary: this is the kiss of death.

It took only minutes for the White House damage-control team to scramble, playing down the remarks with a Kafkaesque assertion that the president “was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change” but was instead making the point that Putin “…cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”  Within the Washington DC’s Capital Beltway the internal logic of the distinction makes complete sense, the White House insisting, a la the Barry Goldwater (1909–1998; Republican presidential candidate 1964) school of clarity of expression that what matters is not what Mr Biden says but what he means and they’re here to explain that.  Perhaps the staff should give Mr Biden a list of helpful ways of advocating tyrannicide.  Arthur Calwell (1896–1973; Leader of the Australian Labor Party 1960-1967) didn’t escape controversy when he called for “the visitation of the angel of death” upon the tyrannical Archbishop Daniel Mannix (1864–1963; Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne 1917-1963) but it was more poetic than Mr Biden’s efforts and Calwell, if accused of advocating tyrannicide, could point out he was calling merely for episcopicide (the killing of a bishop, the construct being the Latin episcopus (bishop in a Christian church who governs a diocese), from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos) (overseer), the construct being ἐπί (epí) (over) + σκοπός (skopós) (watcher, lookout, guardian) +‎ -cide), something with a long if not always noble tradition.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (b 1962; US secretary of state since 2021), noted for his precision of oral expression, followed up by saying it wasn’t the intention of Mr Biden to topple Mr Putin.  “The president made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else” Mr Blinken said while speaking in Jerusalem on Sunday, adding that “the US did not have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else”.  It’s “… up to the people of the country in question… the Russian people”.

Given the context of Mr Biden’s speech, it wasn’t difficult to understand why it aroused such interest.  Earlier, he’d called the invasion of Ukraine an act of aggression “… nothing less than a direct challenge to the rule-based international order established since the end of World War II” and that the valiant resistance of the Ukrainian people was a “battle for freedom” and the world must prepare for a “long fight ahead”.  “We stand with you,” he told Ukrainians in the speech which had begun with the famous words of the Polish Pope Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005): “Be not afraid”, a phrase associated with a earlier call for regime change within the countries of what was then the Warsaw Pact.  In remarks addressed directly to citizens of Russia, he added: This war is not worthy of you, the Russian people”.

The Kremlin’s displeasure at the remarks was soon expressed, prompting the White House cleaners to explain that what Mr Biden said was not what he meant and by Sunday the president appeared to be back on-message.  When asked by a reporter if he was calling for regime change in the Kremlin, he answered: “No”.

Forms in English constructed with the suffix –cide.