madam
verbEtymology From Middle English madame, from Old French madame, from ma (“my”) + dame (“lady”), from post-classical Latin mea domina. Doublet of Madonna.
1
To address as "madam".
- 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:
4 more examples
- 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:
- 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:
2
Ambitransitive, Rare To be a madam; to run (a brothel).
- 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:
4 more examples
- 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:
- 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:
- 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: