stepdame Now arch.
(ˈstɛpdeɪm)
Also 4 stedame.
[f. step- + dame (sense 8).]
A stepmother.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) V. 273 Vortymerus deide, þoruȝ venym of his stedame Rowen. c 1400 Mandeville (Roxb.) xxv. 120 Þai wedd..þaire stepdames efter þe deed of þaire faders. 1590 Spenser F.Q. i. v. 39 His cruell step⁓dame. 1667 Milton P.L. iv. 279 Where old Cham..Hid Amalthea and her Florid Son, Young Bacchus, from his Stepdame Rhea's eye. 1697 Dryden Virg. Past. iii. 48 A Step⁓dame too I have, a cursed she, Who rules my Hen-peck'd Sire, and orders me. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. ix, Other stepdames have tried less laudable means for clearing the way to the succession of their own children. 1894 Lowell tr. Kalevala in Century Mag. May 27/2 Small and weak my mother left me..In the keeping of the stepdame. |
b. fig.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) I. 5 Forȝetingnes all wey kypinge þe craft of a stepdamme, he is enmy of mynde. 1395 Purvey Remonstr. (1851) 137 Necligence is stepdame of lernynge. 1447 O. Bokenham Seyntys, Marg. 942 To eschewyn prolixyte, Stepdam of fauour. 1563–87 Foxe A. & M. (1596) 257/2 The church of Rome, which of a mother is become a stepdame. 1598 Barret Theor. Warres v. ii. 131 An ouer commaunding mount is a stepdame to a fortresse. 1646 Earl of Monmouth tr. Biondi's Civil Wars vi. 8 Vertue the mother of courage..when it meets with desperation the step⁓dame of courage. 1730 T. Boston Mem. xii. 512 The world hath been a step dame to me. 1866 Carlyle Remin. (1881) I. 219 What a tragic, treacherous stepdame is vulgar Fortune to her children! |
c. attrib.
| 1800 Campbell Lines Grave Suicide 13 To feel the step⁓dame buffetings of fate. 1827 Heber Europe 99 And dread the step-dame sway of unaccustom'd war. 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. I. vi. v, Did Nature..fling thee forth, stepdame-like, a Distraction into this distracted Eighteenth Century? |