madam

noun

1. A polite form of address for a woman or lady.

   “Mrs Grey wondered if the outfit she was trying on made her look fat. The sales assistant just said, “It suits you, madam”.”

   “Later, Mrs Grey was sitting in her favourite tea shop. “Would madam like the usual cream cakes and patisserie with her tea?” the waitress asked.”

   ““Nothing, madam, but a tumbler of wine with a little water—thank you, madam. Mesdames, great events have occurred since I left you.””

   “I leaned on the hoe, in classic pose, and watched the cowbird try to bust his buttons in that agonizing split whistle which is his serenade to the madam. Perhaps I should say to the mesdames, for this fellow is the Don Juan of the feathered world, with no moral standards and a distinct aversion to anything that resembles domestic ties.”

   ““[…] This size, madam!” Certainly, the mesdames would not have been interested.”

2. The mistress of a household.
3. (colloquial)A conceited or quarrelsome girl.

   “Selina kept pushing and shoving during musical chairs. The nursery school teacher said she was a bad-tempered little madam.”

4. (slang)A woman who runs a brothel, particularly one that specializes in finding prostitutes for rich and important clients.

   “After she grew too old to work as a prostitute, she became a madam.”

   “I sneaked into the house and stole my sister’s Hudson-seal fur coat out of the closet, then I beat it down to a whorehouse and sold it to the madam for $150.”

5. (India, derogatory, slang)A hated or contemptuous woman; used as a general term of abuse
6. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of madam.

   “The conſtant queſtion, upon her offering to ſtir abroad, was, where are you going Madam? To ſee the King my papa, replied the Princeſs. That cannot be Madam. No? why ſo? It is not the Etiquette. — And thus, if ſhe had a mind to viſit any of the Mesdames, the king’s ſiſters or aunts, ſhe was always told, it was not the Etiquette.”

   “And nowadays the Madam will blame the Worker’s Unions […] Very unnatural but the Mesdames take the girls for granted”

   “For the Mesdames Stuart and Scaglia, finding first and maiden names has taken some archival digging, mainly because of the conventional use of ‘Madam’.”

7. (Singapore)A polite form of address and title, abbreviated Mdm, used before a (usually middle-aged) adult or elderly woman's surname, full name or given name if she does not have a family name.

verb

1. (transitive)To address as "madam".

   “Madam me no Madam, but learn to retrench your vvords; and ſay Mam; as yes Mam, and no Mam, as other Ladies VVomen do. Madam! 'tis a year in pronouncing.”

   “In Houſes where great Numbers of theſe Wretches are lodg’d it is both merry and melancholy to hear what a Maiding and Madamming there is all Day long, from the top of the Houſe to the bottom.”

   “Don’t madam me, — I can’t bear none of your lip service. I’m a plain-spoken woman, that’s what I am, and I like other people’s tongues to be as plain as mine.”

   “He bowed to me, he madamed me, he was throughout as gentlemanlike and respectful as I had ever found him when we met at Old Harbour House or in Old Harbour Town.”

   “"I don't care," she said. "They'll be dead in a few minutes if you'll just do your job. Stop madaming me and get to work."”

2. (ambitransitive, rare)To be a madam; to run (a brothel).

   “Margaret Long’s freudianized Louisville does not have the local color of the famous Lexington bordello madamed by the late Belle Breezing (in the process of being fictionized); […]”

   “I DIDN’T set out to be a madam any more than Arthur Michael Ramsey, when he was a kid, set out to be Archbishop of Canterbury. Things just happened to both of us, I guess. […] Madaming is the sort of thing that happens to you—like getting a battlefield commission or becoming the Dean of Women at Stanford University.”

   “Ray [Aghayan] also used warm golden colors for the friendly whorehouse madamed by Melina Mercouri.”

   “A weird combination of forces is at work to steal back the $25,000 from him, and there’s a myopic, tennis-shoed, sadistic prison-guard captain, played by George Kennedy, who clearly wants to murder all three of them just for the sport of it. All this results in a weird circular chase that doesn’t go anywhere, but takes them into and out of boxcars and onto and off a floating cathouse madammed by Anne Baxter in makeup two degrees this side of a clown.”