"Mistress"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/22/2008 06:11 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>On Aug 22, 2008, at 2:47 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
>>At 8/22/2008 01:02 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>"Mistress" is _not what you think_, you filthy-minded beggars!
>>
>>A genuinely serious question -- what was it (predominantly) in
>>mid-18th century America?  From a Boston newspaper:
>>
>>"On Saturday Evening ... one Ez kiel N-d m of this Town, and another
>>Young Man ... was going over to Roxbury to see their Mistresses ..."
>
>if i read my OED right, this sense isn't there, and i find that
>surprising.  it's such a natural sense development.

Just which sense did you think *I* had in mind, you dirty old
man?  :-)  In any case, they're both there, I think (at least now;
draft revision June 2008); I had checked before writing about this tidbit.

{dag}6. a. A woman loved and courted by a man; a female sweetheart. Obs.
   By the late 19th cent. this usage was generally avoided as liable
to be mistaken for sense A. 7.

7. A woman other than his wife with whom a man has a long-lasting
sexual relationship. In early use: {dag}a woman notorious for some act (obs.).

(Both have earliest cites circa 1425-1440 and were in use in the 18th
century.  My question is which sense would be taken in my quotation,
or is it perhaps intentionally and humorously ambiguous?)

Joel

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