matron
Americannoun
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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
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.
She asked to speak to the matron and was "ushered into the kitchen where a teenage girl was eating rice".
From BBC • Jul. 14, 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
She has been called the “godmother of stuntwomen” and “the grand matron of Hollywood stuntwomen,” working well past retirement age.
From Los Angeles Times • May 6, 2024
“You don’t want the newspapers writing that you’re a dowdy old matron with no fashion sense. You want them saying, ‘The detectives wore petticoats—miles and miles of petticoats.’”
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.
