…(in the UK) a title used by peeresses, female relatives of peers, the wives and widows of knights, etc.…
…a polite form of address to female judges and certain noblewomen…
…a homeless woman who carries her possessions around in shopping bags…
…the nickname of Margaret Thatcher while she was British Prime Minister…
…chance personified as a controlling power in human affairs…
…25 March (the feast of the Annunciation), a quarter day in England, Wales, and Ireland…
…a tall, graceful fern of worldwide distribution which favours moist shady habitats…
…(d.1080), English noblewoman, wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. According to a 13th-century legend, she agreed to her husband’s proposition that he would reduce unpopular taxes only if she rode naked on horseback through the marketplace of Coventry. According to later versions of the story, all the townspeople refrained from watching, except for peeping Tom, who was struck blind as a punishment…
…a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary in a church or cathedral, typically to the east of the high altar in a cathedral and to the south of it in a church…
…the actress playing the principal female part in a film or play…
…a woman (or man) who is employed to help children cross the road safely near a school by holding up a circular sign on a pole to stop the traffic…
…a migratory butterfly with predominantly orange-brown wings and darker markings…
…a woman who engages in ostentatious acts of charity to impress others…
…a herbaceous European plant of the rose family, with lobed rounded leaves and inconspicuous greenish flowers, and formerly valued in herbal medicine…
…an orchid of north temperate regions, the flower of which has a conspicuous pouch- or slipper-shaped lip…
…a short orchid with small white flowers, growing chiefly in north temperate regions…
…(1537–54), great-niece of Henry VIII, queen of England 9-19 July 1553. In 1553, to ensure a Protestant succession, John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, forced Jane to marry his son and persuaded the dying Edward VI to name Jane as his successor. She was quickly deposed by forces loyal to Edward’s (Catholic) sister Mary, who had popular support, and executed the following year…
…a yellow-flowered Eurasian bedstraw which smells of hay when dried and was formerly used to make a mattress for sleeping on…
…a person who does not need to earn a living…
…(circa 1765–1815), English beauty and mistress of Lord Nelson; born Amy Lyon. She met Lord Nelson while married to Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples. She had a daughter by Nelson in 1801 and lived with him after her husband’s death in 1803…
…(in the UK) a female attendant to the queen or queen mother, ranking in the royal household above woman of the bedchamber…
…(1776–1839), English traveller. Granted a pension on the death of her uncle, Pitt the Younger, she settled in a ruined convent in the Lebanon Mountains in 1814 and participated in Middle Eastern politics for several years…
…appropriate for or typical of a well-bred, decorous woman or girl…
…mother of Jesus; known as the (Blessed) Virgin Mary, or St Mary, or Our Lady. According to the Gospels she was a virgin betrothed to Joseph and conceived Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. She has been venerated by Catholic and Orthodox Churches from the earliest Christian times. Feast days, 1 January (Roman Catholic Church), 25 March (Annunciation), 15 August (Assumption), 8 September (Nativity), 8 December (Immaculate Conception)…
…a person’s mother or a man’s wife or girlfriend…
…the nickname of the Bank of England, which stands in this street…
…the leading woman in a particular activity or profession…
…timidity will prevent you from achieving your objective…
