Dame

How to spell dame

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce dame

What does dame mean?

1. nounA title of honour granted to a woman, ranking as the female equivalent of a knighthood.
2. nounAn informal, somewhat dated term for a woman.
3. nounA comic female character in British pantomime, traditionally played by a man.

Dame in a sentence

• The actress was made a dame for her services to theatre.

• The old film noir hero fell for a mysterious dame in a red dress.

• The comedian played the pantomime dame in a towering wig and oversized frock.

• As a dame, she was entitled to use the title before her name.

• Every classic detective story seems to feature a glamorous dame with secrets.

• A good dame keeps the children laughing throughout the whole show.

Where does dame come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin domina, the feminine of dominus, meaning 'master' or 'lord'; domina therefore literally meant 'lady' or 'mistress of the house', the woman who ran a Roman household. It passed into Old French as dame, still carrying the sense of a noble or respected lady, and English borrowed it in the medieval period, around the 1200s. For centuries it served as a courtesy title for a woman of rank, and that formal sense survives today in the British honours system, where Dame is the female counterpart of a knighthood. The same Latin root also gave English 'dominate', 'dominion', and the polite 'madam', so dame sits in a large family of words about lordship and household authority. Its short, plain spelling hides this grand pedigree, and the silent final 'e' that lengthens the vowel is the only real trap.

How the word is built

• dame (from Latin domina: lady, mistress of a household)