Brewer's: Duenna

[Lady ]. The female of don. The Spanish don is derived from the Latin dominus =a lord, a master. A duenna is the chief lady-in-waiting on the Queen of Spain; but in common parlance it means a lady who is half companion and half governess, in charge of the younger female members of a nobleman's or gentleman's family in Portugal or Spain.

“There is no duenna so rigidly prudent and inexorably decorous as a superannuated coquette.” —W. Irving: Sketch-Book (Spectre Bridegroom).

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