MATRON

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does matron mean? 

• MATRON (noun)
  The noun MATRON has 3 senses:

1. a married woman (usually middle-aged with children) who is staid and dignified

2. a wardress in a prison

3. a woman in charge of nursing in a medical institution

  Familiarity information: MATRON used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MATRON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A married woman (usually middle-aged with children) who is staid and dignified

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("matron" is a kind of...):

married woman; wife (a married woman; a man's partner in marriage)

Derivation:

matronly (befitting or characteristic of a fully mature woman)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A wardress in a prison

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("matron" is a kind of...):

wardress (a woman warder)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A woman in charge of nursing in a medical institution

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("matron" is a kind of...):

nurse (one skilled in caring for young children or the sick (usually under the supervision of a physician))

adult female; woman (an adult female person (as opposed to a man))

 Context examples 

On her left were two matrons, with massive foreheads and bonnets to match, discussing Women's Rights and making tatting.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

And really I felt that she was a noble woman—the sort of woman who might have been a Roman matron, and done all manner of heroic things, in times of public trouble.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The archer, however, who had drunk more than any man in the room, was as merry as a grig, and having kissed the matron and chased the maid up the ladder once more, he went out to the brook, and came back with the water dripping from his face and hair.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When the matron Houyhnhnms have produced one of each sex, they no longer accompany with their consorts, except they lose one of their issue by some casualty, which very seldom happens; but in such a case they meet again; or when the like accident befalls a person whose wife is past bearing, some other couple bestow on him one of their own colts, and then go together again until the mother is pregnant.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A stout Frenchman, who knew the Emperor, came to indulge his mania for dancing, and Lady de Jones, a British matron, adorned the scene with her little family of eight.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She had a woman to take care of her called Mrs. Poole—an able woman in her line, and very trustworthy, but for one fault—a fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons—she kept a private bottle of gin by her, and now and then took a drop over-much.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Like most other young matrons, Meg began her married life with the determination to be a model housekeeper.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never came near Lowood now: household matters were not scrutinised into; the cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection; her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the ways of her new abode, provided with comparative liberality.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In America, as everyone knows, girls early sign the declaration of independence, and enjoy their freedom with republican zest, but the young matrons usually abdicate with the first heir to the throne and go into a seclusion almost as close as a French nunnery, though by no means as quiet.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)