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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

See Examples For:

dame-school dame school

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 A. B. (Arthur Burdett) Frost

When John Clare had reached his seventh year, he was taken away from the dame-school, and sent out to tend sheep and geese on Helpston Heath.

From The Life of John Clare by Frederick Martin

He it was to whom my education, and Ned Faringfield's, was entrusted, while the girls and little Tom still strove with the rudiments in the dame-school.

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 Robert Neilson Stephens

He was sent early to the usual dame-school, and developed an insatiable appetite for such stories and ballads as were current among the neighbours.

From English Men of Letters: Crabbe by Alfred Ainger

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 Frederic Jesup Stimson

But some of today's most brilliant and brilliantined names in music went to a dame school to get their shine.

From Time Magazine Archive

The more she thought about it, the more pleasant the dame school sounded to Kit.

From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare

She only knew that the past ten days since the dame school had begun had been the pleasantest she had known in Connecticut.

From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare

Two small heads bent earnestly over each of the three dog-eared primers which were all the dame school could boast.

From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare

Well, before I went abroad he was usher in a dame school in York.

From A Dog with a Bad Name by Talbot Baines Reed