1
: the wife or widow of an emperor
2
: a woman who is the sovereign or supreme monarch of an empire
Examples of empress in a Sentence
the Emperor and Empress of Japan
Catherine the Great was Empress of Russia.
Recent Examples on the Web
In First Steps, Garner plays Shalla-Bal, the immortal empress of the plant Zenn-La and Norrin’s lover.
—
Glenn Garner, Deadline, 24 Apr. 2025
The city—ever elegant, ever enigmatic—set the stage for one of the magazine’s most iconic stories: The Last Waltz, Mario Testino’s sweeping September 2006 editorial starring Natalia Vodianova as a modern-day empress gliding through Schönbrunn and beyond.
—Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, 24 Apr. 2025
The coins featured the faces of 11 Roman emperors and empresses, including Nero and Marcus Aurelius, according to the University of Oxford’s Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire Project database.
—Lauren Liebhaber, Miami Herald, 24 Apr. 2025
If physics is the queen of science, then mathematics is the empress.
—Big Think, 16 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for empress
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Glenn Garner, Deadline, 24 Apr. 2025
The city—ever elegant, ever enigmatic—set the stage for one of the magazine’s most iconic stories: The Last Waltz, Mario Testino’s sweeping September 2006 editorial starring Natalia Vodianova as a modern-day empress gliding through Schönbrunn and beyond.
—Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, 24 Apr. 2025
The coins featured the faces of 11 Roman emperors and empresses, including Nero and Marcus Aurelius, according to the University of Oxford’s Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire Project database.
—Lauren Liebhaber, Miami Herald, 24 Apr. 2025
If physics is the queen of science, then mathematics is the empress.
—Big Think, 16 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for empress
Cite this Entry
“Empress.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empress. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
empress
noun
em·press
ˈem-prəs 
1
: the wife or widow of an emperor
2
: a woman who is the ruler of an empire
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