From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishabbessab‧bess /ˈæbəs, ˈæbes/ noun [countable] RRCa woman who is in charge of a convent (=a place where a group of nuns live)
Examples from the Corpus
abbess• Radegund is extensively commemorated as an abbess and a saint in the writings of Venantius Fortunatus and her second biographer Baudonivia.• This latter was a secular convent which always had a lady of the Habsburg family as abbess.• Sethrid each in turn served as abbess of the Monastery at Brie.• Sexburga, entered this monastery after the death of her husband, King Erconbert, and later succeeded her sister as abbess.• Harold Laski said Beatrice Webb should have been a medieval abbess, where her organising ability would have gained a spiritual dimension.• The saintly abbess spent several fruitful years in that convent, the recipient of extraordinary mystical favors.• The fourteen-year-old Gertrude was appointed as the abbess and proved herself deserving of the title.Origin abbess (1200-1300) Old French abbesse, from Late Latin abbatissa, from abbas; → ABBOT 