lady

Definitions

1. Any woman. Rosalie Maggio in The Dictionary of Bias-Free Usage (1991): '" Lady" defines women as ornaments or decorations rather than real people, as arbiters of both manners and morals, as members of some leisured class, as needing protection from real life, as "too good" or "too special" to "dirty their hands". (...) "Lady" is classist, condescending, trivializing, anachronistic, and oppressive. It has served to keep women on a tricky pedestal, in a neatly disguised servanthood - and out of the workplace.' In usage, both as an adjective and a noun, Rosdalie Maggio recommends: woman.

2. Courtesy title for a dominatrix, a female dominant in BDSM sexual games. Courtesy titles such as countess, domina; marquesa, lady, mistress, mistresse, princess, and queen, are usually followed by a name. Examples: Mistress Pain; Countess Storm.

---

(Noun) a lady is a woman full of grace, class, and well behaved, independent, who speaks for herself

---

(Noun) an adult female.