Forming nouns denoting female persons or animals, is < French -esse < Common Romanic -essa < late Latin -issa < Greek -ισσα ( < -ikyā: cf. the Old English feminine agentive suffix -icge < -igjôn-) occurring in classical Greek only in βασίλισσα queen ( < βασιλ-εύς king), but after the analogy of this employed in several late formations, as βαλάνισσα bathing-woman, πανδόκισσα female innkeeper. A few of these (notably διακόνισσα, Latin diaconissa deaconess) were adopted into late Latin together with their correlative masculines, and many new derivatives of the same pattern were formed in Latin, whence they descended into the Romanic languages; e.g. from abbātem abbot, was formed abbātissa, whence French abbesse abbess n. On the analogy of these the suffix became in Romanic the usual means of forming feminine derivatives expressing sex. In Middle English many words in -esse were adopted from French, as countess, duchess, hostess, lioness, mistress, princess, and several which were formed on nouns in -ëor, -ier (see -er suffix²), as †devoureresse, enchantress, †espyouresse, sorceress. In imitation of these the suffix was in 14th cent. appended to English agent-nouns in -er, as in Wyclif's dwelleresse, sleeress ( < sleer = slayer n.¹), and to other native words, as in goddess. In 15th cent. derivatives in -er + -ess suffix¹ gradually superseded the older English feminine agent-nouns in -ster suffix (Old English -estre), which no longer had an exclusively feminine sense; subsequently the nouns in -ster (except spinster) came to be regarded as properly masculine, and new feminines in -ess were formed on them, as seamstress, songstress. By writers of 16th and succeeding centuries derivatives in -ess were formed very freely; many of these are now obsolete or little used, the tendency of modern usage being to treat the agent-nouns in -er, and the nouns indicating profession or occupation, as of common gender, unless there be some special reason to the contrary. Of the words of English formation still in current use, examples are authoress, giantess, Jewess, patroness, poetess, priestess, quakeress, tailoress. In English the suffix is not used to form feminines of names of animals: lioness, tigress being adoptions from French. When -ess is added to a noun in -ter, -tor, the vowel before the r is usually elided, as in actress, doctress, protectress, waitress; the derivatives with ending -tress, < Latin agent-nouns in -tor, have in most cases been suggested by, and may be regarded as virtual adaptations of, the corresponding French words in -trice < Latin -trīcem. The substitution of governess (already in Caxton) for the earlier governeresse < governor was perhaps due to false analogy with pairs of words like adulter-er, -ess, cater-er, -ess, sorcer-er, -ess; in conqueress, murderess, adventuress the similar phenomenon is sufficiently explained by phonetic reasons. The existence of such words, in which -ess has the appearance of being added directly to verbs, gave rise in the 17th cent. to formations like confectioness, entertainess, instructess; but none of these obtained general currency.

In nouns borrowed from French, where the equivalent suffix is appended to adjectives to form nouns of quality; examples are duress, †humblesse, largess, prowess, †richesse (now riches). These words have been imitated in the pseudo-archaic idlesse, but otherwise the suffix scarcely occurs as an English formative.