1. A lady who is young; a young woman, usually unmarried, or a girl, of superior social position; formerly often used to connote the artificiality, primness, sentimentality, etc., attributed to young ladies.
This expression is now avoided in polite use, except among some old-fashioned speakers and jocularly. Various particular applications formerly existed; thus, from the 17th to the early 19th cent. a young woman or a girl waited upon by a maid-servant was called ‘her young lady’; until late in the 19th cent. girls at boarding schools were spoken of and addressed as young ladies. At the present day, the term is freq. applied, with the intention of avoiding the supposed derogatory implication of young woman, to female shop assistants or clerks of good appearance and manners.
For the vocative use, see YOUNG a. 1 b.
1402[?]. Quixley, Ball., 160, in Yorksh. Archæol. Jrnl. (1909), XX. 44. The yhonge lady then praysed of beautee.
c. 1450. Mirk’s Festial, 291. I rede þat þer was an olde knythe and weddud a ȝung ladi.
1669. Cokaine, Choice Poems, 35. Ask but a Chamber-maid … what her young Lady doth.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas, IV. vii. (1816), 128. It is a long time since I left her, and went to serve a young lady of fashion.
a. 1800. The Governess, in Miss Yonge, Storehouse of Stories (1870), 188. Two young ladies, Lady Caroline and Lady Fanny Delun…. Lady Caroline was fourteen years of age,… Lady Fanny, who was one year younger than her sister, was rather little of her age.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. Ellen. A life, and freedom, and buoyancy, quite unusual in that artificial personage, a young lady.
1837. Eliza Farrar, Yng. Lady’s Friend, i. 1. When they cease to attend school, and begin their career as young ladies.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xvi. The premises of Westgate House Establishment for Young Ladies. Ibid., xl. ‘Good morning, my dear,’ said the principal, addressing the young lady at the bar.
1842. Motley, Corr. (1889), I. iv. 95. I have been young lady enough to keep a journal.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xxiii. ‘Fetch him home,’ said Miss Ripper with authority, ‘and say that my young lady’s here.’
1856. Lever, Martins of Cro’ M., xii. ‘A young lady, did you say, Collins?’ ‘Yes, my Lady.’ ‘Then you were very wrong, Collins. You meant to say a young person.’ ‘Yes, my Lady—a young person, like a lady.’
1856. Amy Carlton, 42. Miss Colman … pronounced the oracular words, ‘Your lessons, young ladies, immediately.’
1886. [see YOUNG a. 1 b].
1920. Oxford Times, 24 Dec., 1/2. Young Lady Wanted, with good experience, as Book-keeper.
attrib. 1784. Bage, Barham Downs, I. 43. Amongst young-lady-correspondents especially, it is a sort of petty treason, to send blank paper to a friend.
1857. Miss Mulock, in Chamb. Jrnl., 2 May, 274/2. My young-lady friends, of from seventeen upwards, your time, and the use of it, is as essential to you as any fathers or brothers of you all.
1865. Le Fanu, Guy Dev., iii. I. 42. Beatrix was in a young-lady reverie.
2. A female sweetheart; a fiancée. vulgar.
1896. G. B. Shaw, You Never Can Tell, IV. My wife was like your young lady: she was of a commanding … disposition.
Hence (chiefly nonce-wds.) Young-ladydom, young ladies collectively; Young-ladyfied a., having acquired, or having, the style of a young lady; Young-ladyhood, the condition or status of a young lady; also concr. young ladies collectively; Young-ladyish, Young-ladylike adjs., resembling or characteristic of a young lady; Young-ladyism, the style, or a phrase, characteristic of young ladies; Young-ladyship, the personality of a young lady.
1866. Sat. Rev., 14 April, 439/2. The virtuous young man, struggling with adversity, and pushing his fortunes in the teeth of a hostile world, monopolized the sympathies of *young-ladydom.
1882. Pall Mall Gaz., 31 Oct., 4/2. A general air of ‘young-ladydom’ prevails, each second name in the catalogue is a Lily or a Jessie or a Letitia.
1863. Miss Braddon, Aur. Floyd, vi. No stiff, embroidered, *young-ladyfied garment.
1853. Miss Yonge, Heir of Redclyffe, iv. They had not arrived at perceiving that they were on the equal terms of *youngladyhood.
1858. Trollope, Dr. Thorne, xxxi. No bevy of Greshamsbury young ladies had fairly represented the Greshamsbury young-ladyhood if Mary Thorne was not there.
1860. Sat. Rev., 7 Jan., 12/1. It is not to be wondered at … that there should be something eminently *young ladyish in the clergyman’s way of doing parochial business.
1884. Howells, Silas Lapham, I. iv. The Colonel, in fond enjoyment of their *young ladyishness.
1853. Miss Yonge, Heir of Redclyffe, x. I am not fallen so low as the essence of *young-ladyism.
1832. E. FitzGerald, Lett. (1889), I. 12. I am sorry to say that I have a very *young-lady-like partiality to writing to those that I love.
1852. Miss Mulock, Agatha’s Husb., iv. To judge whether, young-lady-like, she had told his secret to all her female friends.
1891. Barrie, Little Min., iv. ‘Hae you ever looked on a lord?’ ‘No.’ ‘Or on an auld lord’s *young leddyship? I have.’
