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In the English language, an honorific is a form of address conveying esteem, courtesy or respect. These can be titles prefixing a person's name, e.g.: Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Mx, Sir, Dame, Dr, Cllr, Lady, or Lord, or other titles or positions that can appear as a form of address without the person's name, as in Mr President, General, Captain, Father, Doctor, or Earl.
In cases of divorce, a woman may keep the same style as during marriage or she may choose to assume the style "Mrs [given name] [husband's surname]". Regardless of what she chooses, she loses all precedence acquired from marriage and, because of the former option, there can be multiple Ladies John Smith at any one time.
The most common honorifics in modern English are usually placed immediately before a person's name. Honorifics used (both as style and as form of address) include, in the case of a man, "Mr." (irrespective of marital status), and, in the case of a woman, previously either of two depending on marital status: "Miss" if unmarried and "Mrs." if married, widowed, or divorced; more recently, a third ...
Ms. – Adult woman (regardless of marital status) Mrs. – Married Adult woman (includes widows and divorcées) Miss – Unmarried Adult Woman or Female child; Master – Male Child; Madam (also Madame and Ma'am) – Formal form of address for an adult woman. Also used to denote a position of power or respect, similar to the usage of "Mister ...
In the past, a woman in England usually assumed her new husband's family name (or surname) after marriage; often she was compelled to do so under coverture laws. Assuming the husband's surname remains common practice today in the United Kingdom (although there is no law that states the name must be changed) and in other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Gibraltar, Falkland ...
"Miss" can apply to specifically unmarried women, however, the term is being replaced more and more by "Ms." [citation needed] "Miss" can apply to an unmarried woman or more generally to a younger woman. "Miss" is the proper form of address for female children and unmarried women, although some consider the latter use to be dated.
Similar styles are also applied to clergy of equivalent status in other religious organisations. The words clergy and cleric/clerk are derived from the proper term for bishops, priests and deacons still used in legal documents: Clerk in Holy Orders (e.g. "Vivienne Frances Faull, Clerk in Holy Orders"). Clergy in the Church of England are never ...
Madam (/ ˈ m æ d əm /), or madame (/ ˈ m æ d əm / or / m ə ˈ d ɑː m /), [1] is a polite and formal form of address for women in the English language, often contracted to ma'am [2] (pronounced / ˈ m æ m / in American English [2] and this way but also / ˈ m ɑː m / in British English [3]). The term derives from the French madame ...