Lady
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.
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Famous quotes containing the word lady:
“Sweet Suffolk Owl, so trimly dight
With feathers, like a lady bright,
Thou sing’st alone, sitting by night,
Te whit! Te whoo! Te whit! To whit!”
—Thomas Vautor (fl. c. 1590?)
“I was supposed to retire when I was seventy-two years old, but I was seventy-seven when I retired. On my seventy-sixth birthday a lady had triplets. It was quite a birthday present.”
—Josephine Riley Matthews (b. 1897)
“We have dancing ... from soon after sundown until a few minutes after nine o’clock.... Occasionally the boys who play the female partners in the dances exercise their ingenuity in dressing to look as girlish as possible. In the absence of lady duds they use leaves, and the leaf-clad beauties often look very pretty and always odd enough.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)