ladies and gentlemen

ladies and gentlemen noun: used as a vocative to address an audience.

Noun

ladies and gentlemen pl (plural only)

(plural, plural-only) Used as a vocative to address an audience.
- […] a Master of Ceremonies' words "Ladies and gentlemen" […] interpellates those being addressed as an audience, and one that is differentiated by gender.1996, “The Cambridge History of American Literature”, in Sacvan Bercovitch, editor, Poetry and criticism, 1940-1995, volume 8, page 408
(euphemistic, plural, plural-only, rare) Public toilets: a ladies' room and a gentlemen's room.
- There are quays there and lamps and some squares of grass; a ladies and gentlemen, and a cinema.1941, Joyce Cary, chapter XLIV, in Herself Surprised, page 108

phrase used to address an audience of men and women: देवियो और सज्जनों deviyo aur sajjanõ

phrase used to address an audience of men and women: خواتین و حضرات xawātīn-o-hazrāt

phrase used to address an audience of men and women: mga binibini at mga ginoo

phrase used to address an audience of men and women: سَيِّدَاتِي وَسَادَتِي sayyidātī wa-sādatī

More languagesFewer languages

ladies and gentlemen in Malay: hadirin sekalian, tuan-puan sekalian, tuan-tuan dan puan-puan
ladies and gentlemen in Indonesian: tuan-tuan dan nyonya-nyonya, hadirin sekalian, saudara-saudara
ladies and gentlemen in Persian: خانمها و آقایان xânom-hâ va âqâyân
ladies and gentlemen in Thai: สุภาพบุรุษและสุภาพสตรี sù-pâap-bù-rùt-lɛ́-sù-pâap-sà-dtrii
ladies and gentlemen in Myanmar: လူကြီးမင်းများခင်ဗျား lu-kri:mang:mya:hkangbya:, မိဘပြည်သူများ mi.bha.pranysu-mya:

Around 1750, the form gentlemen and ladies was more common, but from 1770 the ladies-first word order predominates.

What does ladies and gentlemen mean?: Ladies and gentlemen means used as a vocative to address an audience.
What is ladies and gentlemen in Hindi?: Ladies and gentlemen in Hindi is देवियो और सज्जनों (deviyo aur sajjanõ). See Ladies and gentlemen meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is ladies and gentlemen?: Ladies and gentlemen is a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: ladies and gentlemen (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-ladies and gentlemen.wav.

Cite this entry: “ladies and gentlemen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ladies_and_gentlemen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.