1832 M. N. Croker Adventures Barney Mahoney ix. 144 If you had the weary task of matronising through only one season, you would not be so ignorant on the subject, Mr. Temple.

1837 M. Fuller Let. 26 May (1983) I. 275 I don't know that I have any matronizing to do at P. Except to let my candle shine with its usual lustre, a fair ensample, to the maidens of Providence at those hours when I am with them.

1856 Knickerbocker May 484 I had seen so little of society that I scarcely knew its rules. But I have learned since, and learned too what sort of morality it glosses with its matronizing and chaperoning.

1867 A. D. Whitney Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life iv. 45 They were to..participate..under her matronizing, in city gayeties.

1883 Cent. Mag. 26 283/1 The matronizing of a houseful of hungry school-boys.

1999 J. Frueh in K. Woodward Figuring Age 218 Society's matronizing of women.

1827 Age 30 Dec. 237/2 The placid solemnity, the grave ascendency, and the matronizing universality of the mistress of the banquet.

1897 W. D. Howells Landlord Lion's Head 213 They stood before the matronizing hostess.

1913 H. L. Roberts Cyclop. Social Usage 351 At a well-conducted bachelor ball, one of the hosts usually makes it his special business to present the guests to the group of matronizing ladies.

1942 O. Nash Good Intentions 5 A matronizing woman causes me to froth at the mouth.

1985 New Yorker 26 Aug. 42/2 She regards us with matronizing amusement, as if we were lost children.

1995 Boston Bk. Rev. Apr. 9/3 She goes on to say that pro-censorship feminists consistently infantilize women with their matronizing, ‘mother knows best’ attitude.

2011 K. R. Karlyn Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers Introd. 18 One could imagine an empowered Rose replying to that matronizing voice..with barely suppressed anger: ‘Oh, Mother, shut up.’

1973 B. Hardy in S. Spender D. H. Lawrence: Novelist, Poet, Prophet 94 The woman in the poem generalises, matronisingly—‘Men are the shyest creatures.’

1994 N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 26 May 14/2 Calling it ‘vehemently feminist’ and passing on is like matronizingly awarding it stars for good conduct.

1998 E. Shohat Talking Visions Introd. 17 Although Eurocentric feminists have matronizingly misconstrued post-Third Worldist women of color as ‘latecomers’ to feminism, many feminists of color have shunned mainstream feminist organizations.

2003 T. Adams & R. Bartlett in T. Adams & J. Manthorpe Dementia Care i. 10 Infantilization, treating a person very patronizingly (or ‘matronizingly’) as an insensitive parent might treat a very young child.