ladies

Usage Note: The word lady goes back to Old English and was traditionally used for a woman of social standing or rank. Perhaps because of the word's association with high society, today lady is most acceptable in parallel with gentleman, as in the sentences Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please! and At the opera for the first time, they were dazzled by all of the ladies in ball gowns and gentlemen in sharp tuxedos. This latter sentence was approved by 91 percent of the Usage Panel in our 2016 survey. By contrast, the sentence Nancy Brown will be the first lady to serve as chair of the committee was accepted by only 29 percent of the Panel, with many panelists commenting that the use of lady where woman would easily do can be taken as offensive. The degree to which lady is or isn't considered offensive has become dependent on context. When presented with a range of sentences using lady in formal and informal contexts with both male and female speakers, many members of the Panel stated that they found lady to be acceptable and inoffensive when used ironically or jocularly. · The use of lady as an attributive to modify another noun, as in the phrase lady doctor, is widely considered offensive. When the sex of the person is relevant, the preferred modifier is woman or female. See Usage Note at female.