matron
Americannoun
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matrons
plural
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a married woman, especially one who is mature and staid or dignified and has an established social position.
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a woman who has charge of the domestic affairs of a hospital, prison, or other institution.
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a woman serving as a guard, warden, or attendant for women or girls, as in a prison.
noun
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a married woman regarded as staid or dignified, esp a middle-aged woman with children
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a woman in charge of the domestic or medical arrangements in an institution, such as a boarding school
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a wardress in a prison
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Official name: nursing officer. the former name for the administrative head of the nursing staff in a hospital
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of matron
1350–1400; Middle English matrone < Latin mātrōna a married woman, wife, derivative of māter mother
Explanation
A matron is a dignified, serious-minded married woman. The warden in a women's prison is also called a matron, which may lead you to conclude that the term is often not a glowing compliment. In a wedding, you can have a maid of honor (the bride’s unmarried attendant) or a matron of honor (one who’s married). Matron includes the Latin root mater, "mother" — as in “maternal,” “maternity,” and “matrimony.” You may imagine matrons as gray-haired and stern, like Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and to avoid negative stereotypes, the title matron, for the woman who runs a nursing home or boarding school, is often replaced with the gender-neutral “director.”
Vocabulary lists containing matron
The Mother of All Lists: Mater, Matr
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Bad Boy
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"Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Faith plays a goth schoolgirl in the film, Imrie plays a school matron, while Sir Stephen plays himself, as the school quiz master.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2025
Seema cosplaying a garden society matron certainly isn’t the worst vision this show has served.
From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2025
She arrived for breakfast looking elegant in a black-and-white caftan, the picture of an Upper West Side matron, a matron without a sizable body count.
From New York Times ● Nov. 29, 2024
“Staff didn’t have time to process or accept the losses,” the lead ICU matron at one large teaching hospital told Prof Fong.
From BBC ● Oct. 27, 2024
So pinched and prim like she was, I could tell she was on a fast road to becoming a dowdy old matron.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
Behind her back, the other matrons make snarky remarks about her while sipping her tea; we learn all this because we share Millie’s point of view and the moms speak freely in front of her.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025
The same dynamic applies for another vintage descriptor for members: “younger matrons and girls,” an allusion to youthful women, married and not.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 18, 2024
“Pacific Heights matrons would bring their Dom Perignon.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2023
Band 7 includes ward sisters and junior matrons, earning between £41,659 and £47,672.
From BBC ● Nov. 10, 2022
Before long we joined the party of frilly-dressed matrons and a few white-haired gentlemen as they climbed into their saddles.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
