Tavernassa

Tavernassa is a historical term used to describe a female owner or manager of a tavern. It appears mainly in philological and historical discussions of Greek-language sources, where it is encountered as a transliterated form referring to the woman who ran or owned a public house.

Etymology and language notes are cautious. The term is generally understood to combine the word for tavern, from Greek ταβέρνα (tavern), with a feminine agent suffix found in various languages and historical texts. In this sense, tavernassa functions as a gendered designation for a female innkeeper, though its exact linguistic formations can vary across sources and periods. Because it is not a common modern term, tavernassa is mostly encountered in scholarly reconstructions or translations rather than in everyday usage.

Usage and context. The notion of a tavernassa reflects the role of taverns in urban life within Greco-Roman and Byzantine spheres, where women could, in some cases, own or operate public houses. However, concrete evidence about individual tavernassas is limited, and the form remains largely literary or referential in modern scholarship. In contemporary Greek, the ordinary term for a female tavern keeper is ταβερνιάρισσα, while ταβερνιάρης denotes a male keeper.

See also: Innkeeper, Tavern, Greek language, Byzantine commerce.