empress (empres)

[ Mary, moder, ble yd mayde, Quene of hevyn, Imperes of helle, Sende me grace both nyzt and daye! Babees Book (E. E. T. S.), p. 358. And sovereign law, that state's collected will, O'er thrones and globes, elate, Sits empre , crowning good, repre ing ill. Sir W. Jones, Ode in Imitation of Alceus. 2. The wife or the widow of an emperor: in the latter case called specifically empre dowager. She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies, More like an empre than duke Humphrey's wife. Shak., 2 Hen. VI., i. 3. Not Cæsar's empre would I deign to prove. Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, 1. 87. Empre cloth, a woolen stuff for women's wear, having a finely repped or corded surface. - Empre gauze, a fine transparent stuff, made of silk, or silk and linen, and having a design, usually of a flower-pattern, woven in in silk. empre et, v. i. See impre 1.