madam
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Middle English madame, from Old French madame, from ma (“my”) + dame (“lady”), from post-classical Latin mea domina. Doublet of Madonna.
Inflected forms:
form: madams
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: mesdames
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: madame
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: madams
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: madaming
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: madamming
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
rare
form: madamed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: madamed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: madammed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
rare
form: madammed
pos: verb
tags: past
rare
form: madame
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A polite form of address for a woman or lady.
pos: noun
examples: Mrs Grey wondered if the outfit she was trying on made her look fat. The sales assistant just said, “It suits you, madam”.
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.”
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.
“[…] This size, madam!” Certainly, the mesdames would not have been interested.
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.
gloss: The mistress of a household.
pos: noun
gloss: A conceited or quarrelsome girl.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
examples: Selina kept pushing and shoving during musical chairs. The nursery school teacher said she was a bad-tempered little madam.
gloss: A woman who runs a brothel, particularly one that specializes in finding prostitutes for rich and important clients.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: After she grew too old to work as a prostitute, she became a madam.
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.
gloss: A hated or contemptuous woman; used as a general term of abuse
pos: noun
tags: India
derogatory
slang
gloss: To address as "madam".
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: 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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
CAPTAIN WAZBA: (On Mrs. Nabele) Madam! / MRS NABELE: Will you stop madamming me? Madam! Madam! When did that start?
“I am honoured, madam,” he replied respectfully. / “Rizpah, not ‘madam’,” she said sharply. “I am not yet of an age when I can be ‘madammed’ with impunity. You, my father tells me, are called Goliath.”
“This is a small gift for madam from our Chairman Madhav Nambiar; and this is for you sir.[”] Vivek handed over a sturdily packed 1 litre bottle of Dom Perignon champagne. […] “Thank you and your Chairman for your kindness. We are overwhelmed. Could you please stop sirring and madamming us? We would be more comfortable with Naresh and Tam. But....[”]
gloss: To be a madam; to run (a brothel).
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
rare
examples: 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.
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); […]
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.
Ray [Aghayan] also used warm golden colors for the friendly whorehouse madamed by Melina Mercouri.
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.
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.
“[…] As far as earning those slips of paper, you trade for them.” The woman dared shove lacy panties and the slutty Halloween costume right into Eugenia’s chest. “You trade the one commodity you got.” […] “But… you’re still here.” / “By choice. I can walk out that door anytime I wish, take a walk by the lake. Visit City.” […] The indomitable Joan madamed by choice. For air conditioning and comfort. “The ship is a haven, but we all must do our part.”
Related words: ma'am
madame
mademoiselle
m'lady
pimp
pimping
Derived words: bemadam
dear Sir or Madam
Madam and Eve
madamhood
madamish
madamji
Madam President
troll madam
Translations: