The wife of a bishop, or in some contexts, a female bishop.
Formed from 'bishop' plus the French-derived feminine suffix '-ess' (like 'duchess,' 'countess,' 'actress'), dating to medieval times.
The '-ess' suffix reveals how gendered our language was historically—we had to add special endings to show women in positions, but modern usage increasingly just uses the base word for all genders.
The suffix '-ess' marks feminine forms as marked/exceptional variations of (implicitly male) base terms. 'Bishopess' linguistically subordinates women bishops as derivative rather than equal.
Use 'bishop' for all genders. The base term is inclusive; '-ess' suffix reinforces false hierarchy.
["bishop"]
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