Subscriber login


Forgot your password?

Library card login

Other

lady

Pronunciation: /ˈleɪdi/
Translate lady | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of lady

noun (plural ladies)

  • 1a polite or formal way of referring to a woman:I spoke to the lady at the travel agency [as modifier]:a lady doctor
  • used as a courteous designation for a female fellow member of the House of Commons:the Right Honourable Lady promised me her support
  • chiefly North American used as an informal, often brusque, form of address to a woman:I’m sorry, lady, but you have the wrong number
  • 2a woman of good social position: lords and ladies were once entertained at the house
  • a courteous, decorous, or genteel woman:his wife was a real lady, with such nice manners
  • (Lady) (in the UK) a title used by peeresses, female relatives of peers, the wives and widows of knights, etc.:Lady Caroline Lamb
  • a woman at the head of a household: a portrait of the lady of the house
  • 3 (one's lady) dated a man’s wife:the vice president and his lady
  • (also lady friend) a female lover or sweetheart: the young man bought a rose for his lady he caught me entertaining a lady friend in the office
  • historical a woman to whom a man, especially a knight, is chivalrously devoted.
  • 4 (the Ladies) British a women’s public toilet.

Phrases

find the lady

another term for three-card trick.

it isn't over till the fat lady sings

used to convey that there is still time for a situation to change.
[by association with the final aria in tragic opera]

ladies who lunch

informal, often derogatory women with both the means and free time to meet socially for lunch in expensive restaurants: these forgotten types, the ladies who lunch and underwrite foundling hospitals

Lady Bountiful

a woman who engages in ostentatious acts of charity to impress others.
[ early 19th century: from the name of a character in Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem (1707)]

Lady Luck

chance personified as a controlling power in human affairs:it seemed Lady Luck was still smiling on them

Lady Muck

British informal a haughty or socially pretentious woman: it’s that woman, Lady Muck herself—who does she think she is?

My Lady

a polite form of address to female judges and certain noblewomen: ‘You look truly charming, my lady,’ she said

Derivatives

ladyhood

noun

Origin:

Old English hlǣfdīge (denoting a woman to whom homage or obedience is due, such as the wife of a lord, also specifically the Virgin Mary), from hlāf 'loaf' + a Germanic base meaning 'knead', related to dough; compare with lord. In Lady Day and other compounds where it signifies possession, it represents the Old English genitive hlǣfdīgan '(Our) Lady's'

lady in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of lady in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

  |  Cite

Word of the day

epithalamium

/ ˌɛpɪθəˈleɪmɪəm /
noun
a song or poem celebrating a marriage …