madamhood

madamhood

English

Etymology

From madam +‎ -hood.

Noun

madamhood (uncountable)

1. The fact or state of being a woman of high rank or respect.
   • 1859, The Athenæum, 8 January:

     It is, however, to be observed, that the office of Hofdame confers in Germany the same title of Madame, and that every one of the charming “ Misses” who surround our Queen would in Germany be invested with the dignity of Madamhood.

2. The fact or state of being a madam in charge of a brothel.
   • 1991, Gail Hershatter, in Watson and Ebrey, Marriage and Equality in Chinese Society, p. 280:

     However derivative, a woman's status translated into real differences in daily working conditions, personal control over income, and possibilities for negotiating an advantageous exit from prostitution into concubinage or madamhood.

   • 1994, Christopher Hitchens, ‘On Spanking’, London Review of Books, vol. 16, no. 20:

     Alice Kerr-Sutherland, a no-nonsense governess who in the early years of the century had abandoned her errant but legitimate little charges to pursue the high road of madamhood. Her flagellation brothel in St James’s was a place of resort for the gentry and nobility […].