madam

plural madams · plural mesdames · alternative madame

1. A polite form of address for a woman or lady.

   Mrs Grey wondered if the outfit she was trying on made her look fat. The sales assistant just said, “It suits you, madam”.

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   Later, Mrs Grey was sitting in her favourite tea shop. “Would madam like the usual cream cakes and patisserie with her tea?” the waitress asked.

   “Nothing, madam, but a tumbler of wine with a little water—thank you, madam. Mesdames, great events have occurred since I left you.”

   1857, Charles Reade, White Lies. A Story., volume I, London: Trübner & Co., […], page 276

   I leaned on the hoe, in classic pose, and watched the cowbird try to bust his buttons in that agonizing split whistle which is his serenade to the madam. Perhaps I should say to the mesdames, for this fellow is the Don Juan of the feathered world, with no moral standards and a distinct aversion to anything that resembles domestic ties.

   1951 April, John H. Day, “The Breath of April”, in Pennsylvania Game News, volume XXII, number 1, Pennsylvania Game Commission, page 27, column 1

   “[…] This size, madam!” Certainly, the mesdames would not have been interested.

   1987, Navasilu, page 81

   After two years, Madam X was busy enough to take on a partner: Madam Z, aged twenty. Both regularly scouted new marks and told Stead that ‘nurse girls’ (nannies) were the best: ‘there are any number in [the parks] every morning and all are virgins’. Selling maidenhoods was their speciality. ‘Our gentlemen want maids,’ they said, ‘not damaged articles.’ ‘Come,’ he said to the mesdames, ‘what do you say to delivering me five [girls] on Saturday next? . . . Could you deliver me a parcel of maids, for me to distribute among my friends?’ Within a fortnight, the Mesdames had supplied Stead with seven girls between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.

   2012, Bridget O’Donnell, Inspector Minahan Makes a Stand: The Missing Girls of England, Picador, →ISBN

2. The mistress of a household.

   Synonyms: dame, woman, lady, matron, mistress

3. colloquialA conceited or quarrelsome girl.

   Selina kept pushing and shoving during musical chairs. The nursery school teacher said she was a bad-tempered little madam.

4. slangA woman who runs a brothel, particularly one that specializes in finding prostitutes for rich and important clients.

   After she grew too old to work as a prostitute, she became a madam.

   1 more example

   I sneaked into the house and stole my sister’s Hudson-seal fur coat out of the closet, then I beat it down to a whorehouse and sold it to the madam for $150.

   1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “Quit Foolin’ with That Comb”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 1 (1899–1923: A Nothin’ but a Child), page 54

   Synonyms: abbess, bawd, lady abbess, nookie-bookie, whoremistress, brothelkeeper

5. IndiaderogatoryslangA hated or contemptuous woman; used as a general term of abuse

present singular third person madams · participle present madaming · participle present rare madamming · participle past madamed · past madamed · participle past rare madammed · past rare madammed · alternative madame

1. transitiveTo address as "madam".

   CAPTAIN WAZBA: (On Mrs. Nabele) Madam! / MRS NABELE: Will you stop madamming me? Madam! Madam! When did that start?

   1999, Onyekachukwu Pat Onyeibe, Captain Wazba, Suleja, Niger State: FloodGates, →OCLC, page 32

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   Madam me no Madam, but learn to retrench your vvords; and ſay Mam; as yes Mam, and no Mam, as other Ladies VVomen do. Madam! 'tis a year in pronouncing.

   1668 June 22 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), John Dryden, An Evening’s Love, or The Mock-Astrologer. […], In the Savoy [London]: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1671, →OCLC, Act III, page 33

   In Houſes where great Numbers of theſe Wretches are lodg’d it is both merry and melancholy to hear what a Maiding and Madamming there is all Day long, from the top of the Houſe to the bottom.

   [1736], [Erasmus Jones], Luxury, Pride and Vanity, the Bane of the British Nation. […], 4th edition, London: […] J[ames] Roberts […] and sold by Edward Withers, […] J[ohn] Joliffe […], →OCLC, page 11

   Don’t madam me, — I can’t bear none of your lip service. I’m a plain-spoken woman, that’s what I am, and I like other people’s tongues to be as plain as mine.

   1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle

   He bowed to me, he madamed me, he was throughout as gentlemanlike and respectful as I had ever found him when we met at Old Harbour House or in Old Harbour Town.

   1905, William Clark Russell, The Yarn of Old Harbour Town, page 208

   "I don't care," she said. "They'll be dead in a few minutes if you'll just do your job. Stop madaming me and get to work."

   1988, Gahan Wilson, Eddy Deco's Last Caper, page 123

2. ambitransitiverareTo be a madam; to run (a brothel).

   Ray [Aghayan] also used warm golden colors for the friendly whorehouse madamed by Melina Mercouri.

   1970, Entertainment World, volume 2, part 1, →OCLC, page 16, column 3

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   The writer has never accepted the criterion “will it make money?” He has known that the application of such an irrelevancy to any of the arts and sciences resulted in sterility, error and waste. But what is more important, the writer will not pretend that this is not so. He will not pretend that the money criterion is a valid point of reference. The result has been that the writer has been kicked around from furnished room to the luxurious offices of advertising agencies and those palaces of prostitution which are madamed by public relations counsellors.

   1937, Henry Hart, “The Tragedy of Literary Waste”, in Henry Hart, editor, The Writer in a Changing World, New York, N.Y.: Equinox Cooperative Press, →OCLC, page 108

   Margaret Long’s freudianized Louisville does not have the local color of the famous Lexington bordello madamed by the late Belle Breezing (in the process of being fictionized); […]

   1953, Lawrence S[idney] Thompson, Algernon D. Thompson, The Kentucky Novel, Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, page 11

   I DIDN’T set out to be a madam any more than Arthur Michael Ramsey, when he was a kid, set out to be Archbishop of Canterbury. Things just happened to both of us, I guess. […] Madaming is the sort of thing that happens to you—like getting a battlefield commission or becoming the Dean of Women at Stanford University.

   1966, Sally Stanford, “Prologue”, in The Lady of the House: The Autobiography of Sally Stanford, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →LCCN, page 9

   A weird combination of forces is at work to steal back the $25,000 from him, and there’s a myopic, tennis-shoed, sadistic prison-guard captain, played by George Kennedy, who clearly wants to murder all three of them just for the sport of it. All this results in a weird circular chase that doesn’t go anywhere, but takes them into and out of boxcars and onto and off a floating cathouse madammed by Anne Baxter in makeup two degrees this side of a clown.

   1971 August 30, Will Jones, “After Last Night”, in Minneapolis Tribune, volume CV, number 98, Minneapolis, Minn.: Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company, →OCLC, page 10B

   I’m in business for money. Madaming is the perfect place to meet presidents of large corporations who give me stock tips. Who gets the first news on new offers—me—sitting in my house of joy. I get a financial education which leads to money, and I like the men.

   1973, Susan Hall, quoting Pamela, “Business Women in a World of Pleasure”, in Ladies of the Night, New York, N.Y.: Prairie House, Trident Press, →OCLC, page 147

plural Madams · plural Mesdames

1. Alternative letter-case form of madam.

   And nowadays the Madam will blame the Worker’s Unions […] Very unnatural but the Mesdames take the girls for granted

   2008, Dave M. Save, Mano a Mano—Quote, Unquote, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 423

   3 more examples

   The conſtant queſtion, upon her offering to ſtir abroad, was, where are you going Madam? To ſee the King my papa, replied the Princeſs. That cannot be Madam. No? why ſo? It is not the Etiquette. — And thus, if ſhe had a mind to viſit any of the Mesdames, the king’s ſiſters or aunts, ſhe was always told, it was not the Etiquette.

   1792, I. G. Rievethal, Lectures Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Young People, Who Apply Themselves to the English Tongue, Riga: I. Fr. Hartknoch, pages 49–50

   After two years, Madam X was busy enough to take on a partner: Madam Z, aged twenty. Both regularly scouted new marks and told Stead that ‘nurse girls’ (nannies) were the best: ‘there are any number in [the parks] every morning and all are virgins’. Selling maidenhoods was their speciality. ‘Our gentlemen want maids,’ they said, ‘not damaged articles.’ ‘Come,’ he said to the mesdames, ‘what do you say to delivering me five [girls] on Saturday next? . . . Could you deliver me a parcel of maids, for me to distribute among my friends?’ Within a fortnight, the Mesdames had supplied Stead with seven girls between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.

   2012, Bridget O’Donnell, Inspector Minahan Makes a Stand: The Missing Girls of England, Picador, →ISBN

   For the Mesdames Stuart and Scaglia, finding first and maiden names has taken some archival digging, mainly because of the conventional use of ‘Madam’.

   2021, Randi Margrete Selvik, Svein Gladsø, Annabella Skagen, editors, Relevance and Marginalisation in Scandinavian and European Performing Arts 1770–1860: Questioning Canons, Routledge, →ISBN

2. SingaporeA polite form of address and title, abbreviated Mdm, used before a (usually middle-aged) adult or elderly woman's surname, full name or given name if she does not have a family name.