gräfin

See also: Gräfin

English

Etymology

From German Gräfin.

Noun

gräfin (plural gräfins)

1. A German countess.
   • [1859], “Sinking a Sly Shaft”, in Getting On: A Tale of Modern English Life, volume I, London: James Hogg & Sons, page 267:

     Having here little to do but viser passports and flirt with married gräfins rather fat than fair, he had applied himself to a study of prophecy.

   • 1862, Edward Heneage Dering, chapter XII, in A Great Sensation, volume I, London: Hurst and Blackett, […], page 155:

     Mrs. Grahame was puzzled at finding that her letters of introduction, whose probable efficacy she had measured by that of the £4985 19s. 7½d., expended at 180, Belgrave Square, produced at Carlsbad a large assortment of princes and princesses, grafs and gräfins, and super-induced young Englishmen, coroneted and otherwise, whom she had failed of attracting to any one of her two balls, one concert, and six dinners, in London.

   • 1884 Christmas, Mrs. Alexander [pen name; Anne French Hector], “Mrs. Vereker’s Courier Maid”, in The Gentleman’s Annual, chapter III, page 75:

     […] old women are seeking to earn a few groschen by carrying home the purchases of buyers, and even a sprinkling of lady baronesses and gräfins, each attended by a footman, […]

   • 1995, Peter Vansittart, A Safe Conduct, Peter Owen Publishers, →ISBN, page 57:

     Emerald enclosed faith, though gräfins needed faith mostly in grafs.

Coordinate terms

• graf