dame

noun

1. 1

   Usually capitalized as Dame: a title equivalent to Sir for a female knight.

   Dame Edith Sitwell

   The cover of the modern cd, issued by EMI Classics with Dame Janet Baker and Sir John Barbirolli in 1965, carries a portrait of Dame Janet wearing a long coral necklace in reference to the song 'Where the Corals lie' to words by Richard Garnett (1835–1906).

2. 2

   A matron at a school, especially Eton College.

   As he [Fréderic Guyaz] worked for Topham [Beauclerk] while he was at Eton, it is likely that Topham was a day-boarder there, living at home in Windsor. His Eton "dame" was Mrs. Bland; day-boarders were allocated to a dame at whose house they took their meals.

3. 3

   In traditional pantomime: a melodramatic female often played by a man in drag.

   [page 73, column 2] Mother Goose was produced on the 29th of December; Simmons playing the Old Dame; […] [page 74, column 1] Bugle condemns her to the ducking-stool, a sentence opposed by Colin, who espouses the cause of the Old Dame, who, escaping from her persecutors, puts an end to the wedding festivities by raising the ghost of the Squire's first wife.

4. 4

   datedA woman.

   I can see that would be the kind of a chap that the dames would stand for everlastingly.

   There is nothin' like a dame / Nothin' in the world. / There is nothin' you can name / That is anythin' like a dame.

5. 5

   archaicA lady, a woman.

   Now, thou, deare dame, that workſte theſe ſweete effectes in mee, / Vouchsafe my zeale, that onely ſeeke to ſerve and honour thee.

   [T]hough they were first-form'd dames of Earth, / And in whose sparcklinge and refulgent eyes / The glorious sonne did still delight to rise; […]

   And do you think my Dame Dobſon don't know a little better than you? She tells you, you need ſay no more, and 'tis an affront to her Art not to believe her; and I'le not ſee my Dame affronted.

   [H]e pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism, in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and deacon Gookin.

6. 6

   The hereditary feudal ruler (seigneur) of Sark, when the title is held by a woman in her own right.

7. 7

   slangA queen.

verb

1. 1

   To make a dame.

   The French call simply Pawn, “la Dame qui n’est point Damée, et l’on n’appelle Dame proprement dite, que le Pion qui est Damé, et couvert d’un autre Pion,” which means “the Draught or Pawn which is not damed, and which is only termed Dame or Queen, when the Pawn which is damed, is covered with another Pawn.”

   Jonathan’s first edition of Calais was signed by Dame Agatha [Christie]. Not as Dame Agatha, just plain Agatha. She got Damed later.

   […]Joanna Lumley, both pros in their respective fields, and both Brits in their respective hearts, are now both newly knighted (damed, in Lumley’s case) by England’s Queen Lizzy.

   Edna [Everage] was damed spontaneously, on camera, by the Socialist Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam.

Forms

plural

dames

past tense

damed

past participle

damed

present participle

daming

third person singular

dames