The word lady is a polite term for a woman, specifically the female equivalent to, or spouse of, a lord or gentleman, and in many contexts a term for any adult woman. Once relating specifically to women of high social class or status, over the last 300 years it has spread to embrace all adult women, though in some contexts may still be used to evoke a concept of "ladylike" standards of behaviour.
Read more about Lady: Etymology and Usage
Famous quotes containing the word lady:
“Thou wrong’st a gentleman, who is as far
From thy report as thou from honor, and
Solicits here a lady that disdains
Thee and the devil alike.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Hollywood keeps before its child audiences a string of glorified young heroes, everyone of whom is an unhesitating and violent Anarchist. His one answer to everything that annoys him or disparages his country or his parents or his young lady or his personal code of manly conduct is to give the offender a “sock” in the jaw.... My observation leads me to believe that it is not the virtuous people who are good at socking jaws.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist—
I don’t think she’d be missed—I’m sure she’d not be
missed!”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)