dame school

English

Alternative forms

• dame's school

Noun

dame school (plural dame schools)

1. (now historical) A school for children, run by a woman.
   • 1793, Jane Austen, ‘The Generous Curate’, Juvenilia:

     Young Williams knew nothing more at the age of 18 than what a twopenny Dame's School in the village could teach him.

   • 2016, Peter Ackroyd, Revolution, Pan Macmillan, page 189:

     He […] was dispatched to a dame school and then to the local grammar school where he first encountered the sacred mysteries of Greek and Latin.

Anagrams

• schooldame