noun

• 1The daughter of a monarch.

  ‘Her name is R'jas un Z'kovn Sy'yski and she is the Muse princess, daughter of Prince Noyus and next in line for the throne.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Deputy President Jacob Zuma is engaged to a Swaziland princess, the daughter of Prince Phiwokwakhe Dlamini, his office announced on Saturday.’
  • ‘The second row was occupied by the sultan's unmarried daughters, the princesses Nurmalitasari, Nurkamnari Dewi, Nurabra Juwita and Nurastuti Wijareni.’
  • ‘Kylie was the perfect daughter, the perfect princess.’
  • ‘One of these ladies was Pharaoh's daughter, a princess!’
  • ‘He tried to remain calm, but it was hard to do when he was holding within him the secret of a lifetime, that he was in love with her daughter, a princess.’
  • ‘If she had a mind to forgive him, it vanished as she spied him in the company of the Trojan princess Cassandra, daughter of Priam.’
  • ‘The first and most likely possibility is that Pharaoh's daughter remained a princess.’
  • ‘She was the princess of Argos, daughter of King Acrisus.’
  • ‘As the crowd parts the King of Arms entourage enters the foyer leading the king and his daughter, the princess, to the stage.’
  • ‘Henriette Amazo was a princess, the only daughter of a powerful king - his youngest child.’
  • ‘Additional estates were granted to the empress dowager, the heir apparent, imperial princesses, imperial in-laws, and members of the merit aristocracy.’
  • ‘The Pharaoh followed by the main queens, Nefertari, and Istnofret, followed by the Crown Prince Merenptah then came the princesses and the remaining princes.’
  • ‘We have been primed for it from the very beginning with fairy tales, princes and princesses falling in love at first sight and, mysteriously, living happily ever after.’
  • ‘Stories of angels, princes and princesses of far-away lands and fairy tales would certainly carry off children to a new world, where their imagination could take on wings.’
  • ‘Perhaps there should be a rule that princes only become monarch if there are no princesses, and that all Governors General be female?’
  • ‘So, being the king had no other blood relatives, Redoth decided he was going to marry the princess.’
  • ‘He gave him Meritaten, the oldest princess, as a wife and even crowed him a co-regent.’
  • ‘So the king asked the soldier which of the princesses he would choose for his wife; and he answered, ‘I am not very young, so I will have the eldest.’’
  • ‘The grounds contain the remains of Elsynge Hall, one of Henry VIII's many hunting lodges and a favourite childhood residence of the young princess Elizabeth.’

  1. 1.1A close female relative of a monarch, especially a granddaughter.
     ‘They took Chinese princesses as wives and charged exorbitant prices in silk, grain and tea for their horses (a trade the Chinese tried to disguise as ‘tribute’).’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Sayaji Rao began constructing the Laxmi Vilas Palace in 1878 naming it after his first wife, a princess of Tanjore.’
  2. 1.2The wife or widow of a prince.
     ‘His second wife was an Armenian princess, married while Baldwin was at Edessa.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Beside him is his wife, the Georgian princess Nino Chavchavadze.’
     • ‘The Japanese princess was an aunt of Emperor Akihito and the widow of Prince Takamatsu, a younger brother of the late Emperor Hirohito.’
     • ‘I was thinking about my own ranking; rising from a noble lady to the princess of the kingdom.’
  3. 1.3The female ruler of a small state, actually, nominally, or originally subject to a king or emperor.
     ‘The government wants a successful trip by the crown prince and princess to pave the way for a visit by Emperor Akihito, the daily said.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘She could, however, humiliate the princess before her subjects.’
     • ‘When a Swazi princess weds a Zulu king, she wears red touraco wing feathers around her forehead and a cape of windowbird feathers and oxtails.’
     • ‘Those whose persona is royal are of course kings or queens, or princes or princesses of principalities.’
     • ‘When Caroline married the son of the Elector of Hanover in 1705, she was an intelligent and relatively attractive minor German princess.’
     • ‘The story concerns the relationship between a minor Hapsburg princess and an unmoneyed hussar in the late-nineteenth century.’
     • ‘James converted to Catholicism and married a Catholic princess, Mary of Modena, after his first wife's death.’
     • ‘John of Ibelin became regent for Jerusalem, ruling for the young princess Maria.’
     Synonyms

     monarch, sovereign, king, queen, emperor, empress, tsar, tsarina, prince, princess, potentate, head of state, leader, chief, ruler, lord, overlord
  4. 1.4princess of/amongA woman or thing regarded as pre-eminent in a particular sphere or group.
     ‘the princess of American politics’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Her number one single of last summer, Spinning Around, was, after all, co-written by Paula Abdul - another former pop princess of the 1980s.’
     • ‘Across the kingdom the princes and princesses of pantomime are taking their bows and cracking one-liners in Christmas productions packed with Yuletide yarns and knockabout comic capers.’
     • ‘But the princess royal of country music has always looked beyond her homeland too.’
     • ‘However, just to get back to my article now, the beginning was like this: What makes a female singer turn into a pop princess?’

• 2derogatory A spoiled or arrogant young woman.

  More example sentences

  • ‘stop being such a princess’
  • ‘You're nothing but a spoiled little princess.’
  • ‘She really didn't know much about real life, she was like a spoiled princess.’

• 3British informal A form of address used by a man to a girl or woman.

  More example sentences

  • ‘is something the matter, princess?’