grand duchess
1
8.2
- noun
- /ɡrænd ˈdʌtʃɪs/
- Formal
:
gran duquesa
- Now you must be the grand duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna.
Examples
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But the grand duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna lies buried in Russia.
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Her Imperial Highness, the grand duchess Anastasia.
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What the wife of a guard can do should certainly be easy for a grand duchess.
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Or to make you a grand duchess of the Holy Russian Empire?
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Sending notes to the grand duchess?
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If you're the grand duchess, then I am the grand duke.
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Eight days to produce Her Highness, the grand duchess Anastasia.
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The grand duchess isn't permitted out at night.
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If I were the grand duke and you were the grand duchess, I wouldn't let you prowl through the night like this, like a pretty little kitten.
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During the gala, everyone wanted to meet the grand duchess and hear her stories.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'grand' marks a higher/noble rank and 'duchess' names a female duke, so together they denote a high-ranking duchess. This adjective+noun rank-marking pattern is common (e.g., French grande-duchesse, Spanish gran duquesa) and should be clear to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
Grand duchess comes from putting together grand (meaning 'greater' or 'more important') and duchess (a woman connected to a duke). In old Europe a 'grand duke' was a ruler above a duke, so a grand duchess was the wife of that ruler or a woman with the same rank, which is why it means 'a woman who is the wife of a grand duke or who holds the rank of grand duke'.