Etymograph

English

lady

Lady comes from Middle English lady, from Old English hlǣfdīġe ‘mistress of a household’, from hlāf ‘bread’ + dǣġe ‘kneader’, ultimately from PIE *dʰeyǵʰ- ‘to knead’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*dʰeyǵʰ-1‘to knead’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*daigijǭ1‘kneader’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150dǣġe1‘female servant; kneader’
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150hlǣfdīġe1‘mistress of a household’literally ‘bread-kneader’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500lady1‘a lady’
  6. Englishearliest quotation c. 1591–1595lady1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English lady
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1591–1595, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet: “It is my Lady, O it is my Loue,…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*dʰeyǵʰ-Wiktionary, English lady‘to knead’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*daigijǭWiktionary, English lady‘kneader’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150dǣġeWiktionary, English lady‘female servant; kneader’
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150hlǣfdīġeWiktionary, English lady‘mistress of a household’literally ‘bread-kneader’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500ladyWiktionary, English lady‘a lady’
  6. Englishearliest quotation c. 1591–1595ladyWiktionary, English lady. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1591–1595, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet: “It is my Lady, O it is my Loue,…”

The story

From Middle English lady, laddy, lafdi, lavedi, from Old English hlǣfdīġe (“mistress of a household, wife of a lord, lady”, literally “bread-kneader”), from hlāf (‘bread, loaf’) + dǣġe (‘kneader’), related to Old English dǣġe (‘maker of dough’) (whence dey (‘dairymaid’)). Unrelated to lad.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with lady, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- ‘to knead’

  • figure ← figūra
  • fiction ← ficcioun ← ficcion ← fictiō ← fingō
  • dairy ← deyerie ← deyerie ← deye
  • paradise ← paradis ← paradīs ← paradis ← paradīsus
  • dough ← dow ← dāg ← *daig ← *daigaz
  • faint ← faynt ← fingere
  • fictitious ← fictīcius ← fictus ← fingō ← *fingō
  • effigy ← effigie ← effigiēs ← effingō ← fingō
  • feign ← feynen ← feindre ← fingo ← *fingō
  • figment ← figmentum ← fingō ← *fingō
  • feint ← feinte ← feindre ← feindre ← fingere

through Old English dǣġe ‘female servant’

26 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

noun The mistress of a household.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “lady”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- / lady