stepdame

'To be sure, Maud; maybe you are right; a stepdame is a risk, and I ought to have asked you first what you thought of it; and upon my honour,' she continued merrily but kindly, observing that my eyes, I know not exactly from what feeling, filled with tears, 'I'll never again advise your papa to marry, unless you first tell me you wish it.'

Uncle Silas A Tale of Bartram-Haugh Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1843

As duke, Theseus might easily hasten on the day of marriage if he wished, and indeed he chafes at the waning 'old moon 'that' lingers my desires/Like to a stepdame or a dowager/Long withering out a young man's revenue ', and yet he chooses to abide by the self-imposed delay.

Shakespeare Bevington, David 2002

And in the meane season, he willed his mother to be of good cheere, and comfort her selfe till as he might find some convenient time to come unto her, when his father was ridden forth: Wherewithall hee got him away from the pestilent sight of his stepdame.

The Golden Asse Lucius Apuleius

Judges, whereupon the wickednesse of the Servant, and, the treason of the stepdame was plainely discovered, and the verity of the matter revealed, whereby the woman was perpetually exiled, the Servant hanged on a Gallowes, and the Physitian had the Crownes, which was prepared to buy the poyson.

The Golden Asse Lucius Apuleius

Nay, we have seen numberless processions of healthy kine enter our native village unheralded save by the lusty shouts of drovers, while a wretched calf, cursed by stepdame Nature with two heads, was brought to us in a triumphal car, avant-couriered by

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 16, February, 1859 Various

The stepdame was more excellent in beauty then honesty: for she loved this young man her sonne in law, either because she was unchast by nature, or because she was enforced by fate of stepmother, to commit so great a mischiefe.

The Golden Asse Lucius Apuleius

And here's a grating, through which the sun squints on you like a stepdame, and the breeze blows, as if it meant to tantalize you with a sigh from that sweet mouth, whose kiss you must never enjoy.

The Lock and Key Library Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Old Time English Julian Hawthorne 1890

Being asked his opinion about the death of Gracchus, and replying that the act was a righteous one, the people raised a shout of defiance, -- _Taceant, inquit, quibus Italia noverca non mater est, quos ego sub corona vendidi_ -- "Be silent, you to whom Italy is a stepdame not a mother, whom I myself have sold at the hammer of the auctioneer."

The History of Roman Literature From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius Charles Thomas Cruttwell 1879

The very oversight perceptible to any eye and painful to any ear not sealed up by stepdame nature from all perception of pleasure or of pain derivable from good verse or bad -- the reckless reiteration of the same rhyme with but one poor couplet intervening -- suggests rather the oversight of an unfledged poet than the obtuseness of a full-grown poeticule or poetaster.

A Study of Shakespeare Algernon Charles Swinburne 1873

He wedded a lady in Flanders and had a son or twain, but I have never seen them nor my stepdame; and now Gilbert there, who brought the letter to the

The Herd Boy and His Hermit Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862