Count

1. Formerly, the proprietor of a county who possessed royal prerogatives within his county, as did the Earl of Chester, the Bishop of Durham, and the Duke of Lancaster.
2. Originally, a high judicial officer of the German emperors; afterward, the holder of a fief, to whom was granted the right to exercise certain imperial powers within his own domains.

Though the tittle Count has never been introduced into Britain, the wives of Earls have, from the earliest period of its history, been designated as Countesses.