Definition of dame in English:

dame

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noun

1
(also Dame)
(in the UK) the title given to a woman equivalent to the rank of knight.
‘Dame Vera Lynn’
- ‘The Knights and Dames of the New Zealand Order of Merit took a British tradition, and gave it a distinctly New Zealand flavour.’
- ‘She was the first and only woman appointed a Dame of the Order of Australia.’
- ‘The two British-born stars were honoured as Dames Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.’
- ‘The list also includes Her Majesty The Queen, eight more Dukes, five Marquesses, thirteen Earls, five Viscounts, twenty-three Lords, seven Baronets, fifty-four Knights, two Dames and six Ladies.’
- ‘In 1971, she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976.’
- ‘She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993.’
- ‘She won the Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea in 1978 and was made a CBE in 1976, then a Dame in 1987.’
- ‘The former chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, Ruth Deech, was made a Dame.’
- ‘Wiltshire Chief Constable Elizabeth Neville has also been honoured and been made a Dame.’
- ‘Pamela Coward of Middleton Technology School, Manchester, and Ruth Robins, of the Jewish Free School in London, become Dames of the British Empire.’
- ‘It is a historic first, Dame Elizabeth Taylor, two-time academy award winner, blowing her nose on TV.’
- ‘Is that what I call you, do I call you Dame Maggie?’
- ‘His supporters probably deserve some sort of gong - if McArthur can be a Dame for going sailing, this woman must be worth at least an OBE.’
- ‘Wartime singer Dame Vera Lynn yesterday urged her old friend to ‘take it easy’.’
- ‘Soon after her return from her 27,400-mile journey, the woman from landlocked Derbyshire was made a Dame.’
- ‘During her formative years, she was one of Sister Mary Leo's girls - along with two singers destined to be Dames - Kiri Te Kanawa and Malvina Major.’
2 archaic, humorous An elderly or mature woman.
‘a matronly dame presided at the table’
- ‘As Donaldson is regarded as a divisive whipper-snapper by the elderly gents and dames on the Council, the party leader is probably safe until the autumn.’
- ‘‘Appalling mass of cars and charabancs… disgorging Women's Institute dames with white crimped hair and legs awry ’, he noted of Forde Abbey.’
- ‘Everyone is upstaged by Eileen Atkins as wealthy Miss Matilda Crawley, the cantankerous dame who sponsors Becky's social ascent.’
1. 2.1North American informal, dated A woman.
  ‘a rich dame who took her husband to the cleaners’
  ‘There's must be a wealthy society dame (preferably played by Margaret Dumont) who is entirely smitten with Groucho, though he walks all over her.’
  ‘And any dame who loves ‘Babe’ and ice hockey is one I know I can trust.’
  ‘Roxie's never going to be a towering intellect, but she's one fun dame.’
  ‘She was no wisecracking dame like Rosalind Russell or goofy, well-meaning wife like Irene Dunne.’
  ‘Laury makes an uncomfortable transition from goody-two-shoes to fallen mobster dame, back to goody-two-shoes, and then back to mobster dame.’
  ‘Mae is a serious role, but Lombard's smart-alecky tough dame isn't far from the screwball heroines for which she's best remembered.’
  ‘Well it's there, just waiting for you to gather single blokes and dames and lock them in the unlit tunnel for a month.’
  ‘She's a very reserved and classy dame with impeccable taste in food.’
  ‘My quest: what has this dame got that I haven't got?’
  ‘You remind me of this dame I knew once, only it wasn't real, it was a dream.’
  ‘She was most effective as a lower class dame and no amount of voice training could hide that.’
  ‘This regal dame occupies a corner of the classroom, always decked out in flawless aerobic outfits.’
  ‘So I'm talking to a rather fetching dame with a disco outfit circa 1970, when a nebbish second year inserts himself uninvited to our conversation.’
  ‘Its main characters are played by a dream team of heavyweight Hollywood dames (Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore) whose involvement screams ‘respectability’.’
  ‘These are the kind of urban wild child dames that I like to drink and party and have great conversations with.’
  ‘To call Barbara ‘fickle’ would be putting it mildly: this dame is as cold and calculating as Einstein in a freezer!’
  ‘This no-nonsense downtown dame had been working as a lingerie model when she was abruptly called to star in the lead role of a quality film production.’
  ‘The classy and manipulative Kitty is now a gold digging dame with a thrill for danger and dangerous men.’
  ‘‘The first week it was more of ‘let us check this dame out with her new outfit and everything’.’
  ‘So you and this Duckworth dame and A. are first cousins and L.B. is my second cousin?’
  lady, adult female, female