Miss (pronounced ) is an English language honorific typically used for a girl, for an unmarried woman (when not using another title such as " Doctor" or "

Dame ''Dame'' is an honorific title and the feminine form of address for the honour of damehood in many Christian chivalric orders, as well as the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British honours system and those of several oth ...

"), or for a married woman retaining her maiden name. Originating in the 17th century, it is a contraction of ''

mistress Mistress is the feminine form of the English word "master" (''master'' + ''-ess'') and may refer to: Romance and relationships * Mistress (lover), a term for a woman who is in a sexual and romantic relationship with a man who is married to a d ...

''. Its counterparts are Mrs., used for a married women who has taken her husband's name, and Ms., which can be used for married or unmarried women. The plural ''Misses'' may be used, such as in ''The Misses Doe''. The traditional French "Mademoiselle" (abbreviation "Mlle") may also be used as the plural in English language conversation or correspondence. In Australian, British, and Irish schools the term 'miss' is often used by pupils in addressing any female teacher.

Use alone as a form of address

''Miss'' is an honorific for addressing a woman who is not married, and is known by her maiden name. It is a shortened form of ''mistress'', and departed from ''misses/missus'' which became used to signify marital attachment in the 18th and 19th centuries. It does not imply age, though youth corresponds (as marriage implies adulthood).

Racial discrimination and the term Miss

Being addressed with "Miss" or "Mrs." was frequently denied to black women in the Southern United States in the past.

Mary Hamilton "Mary Hamilton", or "The Fower Maries" ("The Four Marys"), is a common name for a well-known sixteenth-century ballad from Scotland based on an apparently fictional incident about a lady-in-waiting to a Queen of Scotland. It is Child Ballad 1 ...

, a civil rights protester arrested in 1963 in Gadsden, Alabama, refused to answer the prosecutor in a subsequent hearing unless he stopped addressing her as "Mary", demanding that instead she be called "Miss Hamilton". She was subsequently jailed for contempt of court after refusing to pay a fine. This led to '' Hamilton v. Alabama'', 376 U.S. 650 (1964), a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that Mary Hamilton was entitled to the same courteous forms of address customarily reserved solely for whites in the Southern United States and that calling a black person by their first name in a formal context was "a form of racial discrimination".

References

{{Social titles Women's social titles Honorifics Titles

Use alone as a form of address

Racial discrimination and the term Miss

See also

References