lady
Meanings
noun
- The mistress of a household.
- A woman of breeding or higher class, a woman of authority.
- The feminine of lord, a lordess.
- A title for someone married to a lord or gentleman.
- A title that can be used instead of the formal terms of marchioness, countess, viscountess, or baroness.
- A woman: an adult female human.
- A polite reference or form of address to women.
- Used to address a female.
- A wife or girlfriend; a sweetheart.
- A woman to whom the particular homage of a knight was paid; a woman to whom one is devoted or bound.
- A queen (the playing card).
- Who is a woman.
verb
- To address as “lady”.
noun
- An aristocratic title for a woman.
- Used with a surname or the name of a peerage, for a peeress in her own right (other than a duchess), or the wife (or widow) of a peer (other than a duke).
- Used with a surname, for the wife (or widow) of a knight or baronet.
- Used as a courtesy title with the woman’s given name, for a daughter of a duke, marquess, or earl.
- Used with her husband’s given name, for the wife (or widow) of a man who is the son of a duke or marquess, or the oldest son of an earl.
- A high priestess.
name
- The title for the (primary) female deity in female-centered religions.
- The major supernatural figurehead in the Wiccan religion, a triune goddess split into the Mother, Maiden, and Crone.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *hlaibaz Proto-West Germanic *hlaib Old English hlāf Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *daigijǭder. Old English dǣġe Old English hlǣfdīġe Middle English lady English lady From Middle English lady, laddy, lafdi, lavedi, from Old English hlǣfdīġe (“mistress of a household, wife of a lord, lady”, literally “bread-kneader”), from hlāf (“bread, loaf”) + dǣġe (“kneader”), related to Old English dǣġe (“maker of dough”) (whence dey (“dairymaid”)). Compare also lord. More at loaf, dairy, dough. Unrelated to lad.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Related words
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Translations
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.