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• dame-school
  dame-school

  noun

  a school in which the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic were taught to neighborhood children by a woman in her own home.
• dame school
  dame school

  noun

  (formerly) a small school, often in a village, usually run by an elderly woman in her own home to teach young children to read and write

dame-school

American  

[deym-skool] / ˈdeɪmˌskul /

noun

1. a school in which the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic were taught to neighborhood children by a woman in her own home.

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dame school British  

noun

1. (formerly) a small school, often in a village, usually run by an elderly woman in her own home to teach young children to read and write

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Etymology

Origin of dame-school

First recorded in 1810–20

Example Sentences

The gods do not keep a dame-school for us here on earth, and their ways are less obvious than that.

From Pirate Gold by Stimson, Frederic Jesup

She first showed a sense of her deprivation—for it was a deprivation for a rich man's daughter—when she finished at the dame-school and we boys entered college.

From Philip Winwood A Sketch of the Domestic History of an American Captain in the War of Independence; Embracing Events that Occurred between and during the Years 1763 and 1786, in New York and London: written by His Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant in the Loyalist Forces. by Stephens, Robert Neilson

Strengthened by the country air—so they said—young Jacob grew clean out of his dame-school days and into and out of Columbia College, and was sent abroad, a sturdy youth, to have a year's holiday.

From The Story of a New York House by Frost, A. B. (Arthur Burdett)

This is an affectionate half-humorous description of the little dame-school of Shenstone's—and of everybody's—native village, and has the true idyllic touch.

From A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)

Here is his account of his first attendance at the central town-school of Dorchester, after he had left a dame-school.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 by Various