Dendrochronology

The sixth entry is chronologie maîtresse, and an English reader who takes the second word at face value will make the phrase ridiculous. Maîtresse is the feminine of maître, and standing after a noun it is an adjective: it marks the one that governs, the one everything else is measured against. A floor rests on la maîtresse poutre; an old tree carries la maîtresse branche; a card player holds l’atout maître; and any argument may turn on le maître mot. So the entry names the chronology to which every other series is fitted, which is what the trade calls the master chronology in English as well — the same image, used in the same place. The trap is only in the feminine form. « Mistress » has shrunk in English to a single sense and a single flavour, and no curve can be given it. La maîtresse as a noun does carry that sense in French too, but the commonest thing it means is the primary-school teacher a child talks about at home: la maîtresse a dit. Read the adjective, not the noun, and nothing about the heading is strange.