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• dame
  dame

  noun

  (in Britain)
• Dame
  Dame

  noun

  the title of a woman who has been awarded the Order of the British Empire or any of certain other orders of chivalry

dame

American  

[daym] / deɪm /

noun

• dames
  plural

1. (initial capital letter) (in Britain)

   1. the official title of a female member of the Order of the British Empire, equivalent to that of a knight.

   2. the official title of the wife of a knight or baronet.

2. (formerly) a form of address to any woman of rank or authority.

3. a matronly woman of advanced age; matron.

4. Slang: Sometimes Offensive. a term used to refer to a woman.

   Some dame cut me off and almost caused an accident.

5. Ecclesiastical. a title of a nun in certain orders.

6. a mistress of a dame-school.

7. Archaic. the mistress of a household.

8. Archaic. a woman of rank or authority, especially a female ruler.

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dame ¹ British  

/ deɪm /

noun

1. (formerly) a woman of rank or dignity; lady

2. a nun who has taken the vows of her order, esp a Benedictine

3. archaic a matronly or elderly woman

4. slang a woman

5. Also called: pantomime dame. the role of a comic old woman in a pantomime, usually played by a man

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Dame ² British  

/ deɪm /

noun

1. the title of a woman who has been awarded the Order of the British Empire or any of certain other orders of chivalry

2. the legal title of the wife or widow of a knight or baronet, placed before her name Compare Lady

   Dame Judith

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Sensitive Note

Dame is sometimes perceived as insulting when used to refer generally to a woman, unless it is a woman of rank or advanced age.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• dames
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of dame

1175–1225; Middle English < Old French < Latin domina, feminine of dominus lord, master

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dame Dame dames

We grandchildren always considered our Mama Chela a doña — a grand Mexican dame who never wore pants and frequently covered her hair with a veil out of modesty.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026

The “grand dame diva of culture, divahood and porcine glamour” Miss Piggy, was honored at the show, where she showed up, naturally, in a pink dress and feather boa.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026

She was made a dame in 2009, and has also acted as a senior adviser to the British government and the United Nations on artificial intelligence.

From Barron's ● Feb. 20, 2026

England boss Wiegman, who is Dutch, becomes an honorary dame after leading the Lionesses to successive European Women's Championship titles in 2022 and 2025.

From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2025

“Yes. You dont know. You dont even know about the old dame, the Aunt Rosa.”

From "Absalom, Absalom!" by William Faulkner

And at the French capital's Notre Dame Cathedral, an AI system has been trained to transcribe 14,600 Latin pages from the church's medieval archives -- a task not dissimilar to code-breaking.

From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026

Now at the University of Notre Dame, Alford remembered her as “a star at Pepperdine” and said he hoped the public would “get to know her before they prejudge her.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

Got a little fast,’” said Chris Neal, who coached Mauri at Notre Dame.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026

At the Court of Appeal in Belfast, Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan said a ruling by a judge in 2025 preventing the upgrade of the A5 was "problematic" and could not stand.

From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026

“D’you think Dame Hannah can really do the alethiometer?” said Pantalaimon.

From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman

West, one of the grande dames of the movement, got her start at Seattle alt-weekly the Stranger and spent years excoriating fatphobia, online misogyny, and male entitlement for the ur-millennial-feminist site Jezebel.

From Slate ● Mar. 31, 2026

Mattie Ross is one of the toughest dames in American literature.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 12, 2026

"She's certainly one of the grande dames in Scotland," she said.

From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2025

Rowlands embodied tough cookies, glamour girls and grandes dames, with suburban housewives in between.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2024

Boston ladies, their skirts all passe- mentarie and furbelow, India silk and jaconet, crowded the chambers, swiveling their hoops and panniers like dames on clocks to navigate the doors.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson

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