- 1子爵夫人；也可指本身擁有子爵爵位的女性。發音同 viscount，s 不發音，唸「VY-count-ess」。
A viscountess is either the wife of a viscount, or a woman who holds the rank of viscount in her own right. Both readings are live, and only context tells you which one you are looking at — though historically the first is far more common, because British titles usually passed to sons.
Pronunciation follows viscount: "VY-count-ess", with the s of vis- silent. Say it wrong and the word becomes unrecognisable, so this is the part to drill.
In use she is addressed as Lady plus the title — Viscountess Hereford is called Lady Hereford in speech. In writing, the full form appears on invitations, in newspapers, and in the formal lists of who attended what.
The -ess ending puts this word in a group English is slowly moving away from — actress, waitress, stewardess have all lost ground to gender-neutral forms. titles are the exception: they are fixed by rules that predate that change and are still used exactly as before. So viscountess is not old-fashioned in the way "" is; it is simply how the system names her.
Like viscount, this is a recognition word for most — history, royal news, and costume drama.
組成Middle English viscountes, from Old French, and readable as viscount + -ess, the ending that marks a female holder of a title. Viscount itself is vice- "in place of" plus count, so the whole word is "female deputy-count".
原始詞典資料2 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。
viscountessnoun/ˈvaɪkaʊntəs/
- 1
The wife of a viscount.
- 2
A woman holding the rank of viscount in her own right.
- Before his own elevation to an earldom, Disraeli's wife was created Viscountess Beaconsfield by Queen Victoria.
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。