Madonna

nom propre

1. 1

   Synonym of Mary, mother of Jesus, especially in Catholic contexts.

2. 2

   A female given name from Italian.

   We feel bound to add, however, that it is not very likely, in the usual chances of events, that such names as Alaric Attila Watts should have met in matrimony with those of Zillah Madonna Wiffen; and an unkind world may suggest a mystification somewhere.

   But celebrities actually have a weak effect on baby names. As of 2000, the pop star Madonna had sold 130 million records worldwide but hadn't generated even the ten copycat namings―in California, no less―required to make the master index of four thousand names from which the sprawling list of girls' names on page 227 was drawn.

nom

1. 1

   An artistic representation of the Virgin Mary, chiefly when holding the infant Jesus.

   A beautiful example of this type of Madonna is the polyptych in the Museo Civico in Sansepolcro.

   So many Madonnas were produced during the Renaissance that it became the habit to distinguish them by any peculiarity.

2. 2

   A morally pure woman.

   “Men,” I said, with a tone of disgust. “Halal circles, haram circles, good, bad, Madonnas, whores, goats, penises, it’s all the same.”

   […] the mothers who, like Sebastian’s mother in Notorious or Mitch’s mother Lydia in The Birds, block such a transference, or by potential love-objects who are, themselves, Madonnas, whores, or otherwise thinly disguised maternal figures.

   The Madonnas are the mothers to our children, the pillars of our families, and the goddesses of our communities. The Madonnas shun the dark side of human sexuality and banish the whores to hell. We put the Madonnas on a pedestal, and we can’t think of them as being sexual or sexy because they must be pure. They must be virginal like the Madonna herself.

   Sparing no one in her response to her interviewer’s questions about the ERA, she alludes to divisions within the women’s movement, referring to the factions as “Madonnas, whores, housewives, and lesbians.”

Formes

pluriel

Madonnas