dame de compagnien.
/dam də kɒmˈpanji/ A paid female companion. Also transferred.
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society > authority > subjection > service > servant > personal or domestic servant > attendant or personal servant > [noun] > confidential servant or companion
troutc1661
companion1697
dame de compagnie1784
souffre-douleur1845
paid companion1853
1784 H. Mann Let. 8 Oct. in H. Walpole Lett. (1858) VIII. 518 The duchess brought with her, as a dame de compagnie, a Frenchwoman.
1821 P. B. Shelley Let. 18 Feb. (1964) II. 265 The situation of Dame de compagnie is one indeed in which there is little to be hoped compared with what is to be feared.
1832 Edinb. Rev. July 481 The female professor, late dame de compagnie to La Fayette.
1847 W. M. Thackeray Vanity Fair (1848) xxxiii. 289 Marry a drawing-master's daughter, indeed!—marry a dame de compagnie—for she was no better, Briggs.
1885 ‘L. Malet’ Col. Enderby's Wife ii. iii A nice, gentle, little person in grey, who put in an appearance at dinner—dame de compagnie, I suppose.
1897 Sat. Rev. 5 June 641 ‘Mees’ became a ‘damdecompany’ to an old Contessa.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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n.1784