Other forms: ladies
Lady is a polite word for a woman. That lady over there, ladies and gentlemen, the lady at the desk.
Its use is a matter of judgement. Ladies and gentlemen is a standard formal address; the lady in the shop can sound old-fashioned or faintly patronising, and woman is the safe neutral choice. Lady is also a British title — Lady Smith, a lady of the manor — and it names a rank rather than describing behaviour. Note ladylike, which is dated; and ladybird, ladies' room and first lady.
1nounladyA woman, spoken of politely.~23%
“The lady at the counter had been there since 1979.”
2nounholdingA woman holding a title.~77%
“The estate passed to his daughter, who became Lady of the manor.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 13 sentences found in the wild and placed 13 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
lady is a woman, or a title.
Old English hlaefdige means loaf-kneader — hlaf, a loaf, plus a word meaning kneader. Lord is hlafweard, loaf-keeper. The two most exalted titles in English both come from who handled the bread.
Middle English
lady
English, today
lady
Built from
From Middle English lady. From Middle English lady, laddy, lafdi, lavedi, from Old English hlǣfdīġe (“mistress of a household, wife of a lord, lady”) literally “bread-kneader”, from hlāf (“bread, loaf”) + dǣġe (“kneader”), related to Old English dǣġe (“maker of dough”) (whence dey (“dairymaid”)). Compare also lord. More at loaf, dairy, dough. Unrelated to lad.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA