keymistress

• key-mistress

From key +‎ mistress.

keymistress (plural keymistresses)

1. A woman in charge of a key or keys.

   Coordinate term: keymaster

   • 1987 February 10, Tigger Wise, “Leningrad to Moscow on caviar”, in The Sydney Morning Herald, number 46,526, Sydney, N.S.W., →ISSN, →OCLC, “Good Living” section, page 3, column 1:

     Attempting to recapture the mood, two weeks after returning to Australia, we paid $6 for a scoop of the salty black hundreds-and-thousands lumpfish roe they call “caviar” in this country (that is, unless you summon the keymistress to unlock the treasures in David Jones Food Hall refrigerator and reach in with white gloves for a minuscule tin of the real stuff, which costs a week’s wage).

   • 2010 November 23, World of Warcraft, v4.0.3a, Irvine, Calif.: Blizzard Entertainment, →OCLC, “Jorgensen” quest:

     If we're gonna get him out we'll need the key. A stone cold witch known as Utroka the Keymistress holds on tight to that thing.

   • 2012, T[imothy] A[aron] Pratt, “Ill Met in Ulthar”, in Paula Guran, editor, Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful, [Gaithersburg, Md.]: Prime Books, →ISBN:

     “I am the Mistress of the Key,” the blond enchantress said, standing just a few feet away on a platform of white flies. “You have breached the Gates, and come to the edge of the Chasm, and now, you have the chance to win the Key.” […] “So Keymistress,” the witch said. “You look a lot like this woman I know. […]”

     Also published online.

   • 2018, Martina Blečić Kavur, “Pectoral Pendants from Grobnik in the Context of the Iron Age Symbol Aesthetics”, in Histria archaeologica, number 49, Pula, Istria County: Archaeological Museum of Istria, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 53, column 2:

     That is why they are attributed with trimorphic character, probably dedicated to the goddess Reitia, who is compared to Hecate, the keymistress of death and resurrection, fertility, etc.