A lady of quality or refinement; a lady of fashion. Often applied sarcastically to a woman who dresses showily, imitates the manners of a class above her own, or is devoted to display and disdains useful work. Also attrib. (hyphened fine-lady).
1801. Mar. Edgeworth, Belinda (1832), II. xxi. 82. Began with great eagerness to tell the history of the poor gardener, who had been cheated by some fine ladies out of his aloe, &c.
1862. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., III. 145. I had got a little girl of fifteen in place of my fine-lady housemaid.
1893. Miss K. Simpson, Jeanie o’ Biggersdale, 115. Romany lasses could not expect to lead fine-lady lives.
Hence Fine-ladically adv., after the manner of a ‘fine lady’; Fine-ladyish a., like or proper to a ‘fine lady,’ finical; Fine-ladyism, the disposition and behavior of a ‘fine lady,’ also concr. a fad or crotchet of a ‘fine lady’; Fine-lady-like a. = Fine-ladyish.
1777. Mad. D’Arblay, Early Diary (1889), II. 189. Though I was cold and uncomfortable, rather than appear finical and fine-ladyish, I got out and was escorted across the field to the rest of the party.
1784. R. Bage, Barham Downs, II. 40. Assuming a certain degree of fine-lady-like effrontery, began to pay, something awkwardly indeed, her compliments to the mistress of the house.
1811. Byron, Lett. to Hodgson, 13 Oct., Wks. (1846), 549/1. I am growing nervous (how you will laugh!)—but it is true,—really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically nervous.
1834. Tait’s Mag., I. 596/2. The upstart affectation of her fine-ladyism was fulsome enough.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt (1868), 64. ‘One sort of fine-ladyism is as good as another,’ said Felix.
1867. H. Kingsley, Silcote of Silcotes, xlviii. A little too fine-ladyish, the thing just a very little overdone.
