- 1公爵夫人；自己受封時稱女公爵
A duchess is a woman at the very top of the old noble ranks, just under kings and queens. Most often she is the wife — or the widow — of a duke. More rarely a woman holds that rank in her own right, and then she is a duchess too, not only “someone’s wife.” In Britain you meet it in full titles (the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duchess of Sussex): formal, ceremonial language, the kind that belongs in royal news and history books. People also stretch it. They may call a grand, beautifully dressed woman “a duchess” as a joke or a compliment, even when she has no title at all. In Australian English there is a verb, to duchess someone: to treat them like royalty — soft words, fancy dinners — often because you want something from them. You will not hear that verb much in a Taiwan classroom; the noun is the one that matters.
組成From Middle English duchesse, from Old French duchesse (the feminine of duc, “duke”). Doublet of duchesse: the same French form came into English again as duchesse, a heavy satin, and in duchesse potatoes.
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Duchessname
- 1
A village in Alberta, Canada.
duchessnoun/ˈdʌt͡ʃɪs/
- 1
The wife or widow of a duke.
- The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have ended months of intense speculation by announcing they are expecting their first child, but were forced to share their news earlier than hoped because of the Duchess's admission to hospital on Monday.
- 2
The female ruler of a duchy.
duchessverb/ˈdʌt͡ʃɪs/
- 1
informalto court or curry favour for political or business advantage; to flatter obsequiously.
- On arrival in England he was “duchessed” in a manner that no Australian Prime Minister has ever been “duchessed” before or since. Northcliffe was looking for someone around whom he could build a campaign against Asquith. Hughes filled the bill nicely.
- ‘A word to the wise, Murray. Those wogs you′ve been duchessing at Ethnic Affairs have got nothing on the culture vultures. Tear the flesh right off your bones, they will.’
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。