What Does Empress Mean?

Empress is the feminine form of emperor. It refers to a woman emperor or the wife of an emperor. It also originates from the word imperator like the word emperor. Therefore she is the female sovereign or the consort of the emperor. There have several female monarchs in history. If the empress indicates a female monarch then she is entitled to all the powers that belong to the emperor disregarding the difference in the gender. On the other hand an empress who is only the wife of the reigning monarch or emperor has no special powers of state and is merely the emperor's spouse.

The ruling empresses are also known as queens regnant. Cleopatra, Queen Victoria and several others have been successful empresses. But ruling empresses are quite less in comparison to their male counterparts because of the reluctance of people to be ruled by a woman though many of them have time and again proved their worth and capabilities.

The word 'empress' is used to refer to a female ruler of an empire. It is also used to refer to the wife or the widow of an emperor. The word is derived as a feminine form of emperor, which was derived from the Middle English word, in turn derived form Old French, which was derived from the Latin word which meant 'to command'.

Empress is also the name of a fictional character in the DC Comics series. Her real name is Anita Fite and she is the daughter of Donald Fite from the All Purpose Enforcement Squad.

Her first appearance was in the Young Justice series, when she saved Wonder Girl's life by saving her from a poisonous snake bite. It was later disclosed that Anita became a superheroine because she was inspired by Cissie King-Jones, the earlier Arrowette.