Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(mainly US) a woman, often with the implication of promiscuity or unattractiveness.

[c.1350		The Frere and Boy (1836) xxviii: The god man seyde dam go they wey For I sey [...] They gere is not all to borow].
1576		G. Gascoigne Steele Glas Bii: A man, as some do thinke I am, (Laugh not good Lord) I am in dede a dame, Or at least, a right Hermaphrodite.
1602		Rowlands Greene’s Ghost Haunting Coniecatchers F: Monsieur Libid. beat of lust [...] feeling his pocket [...] finds nothing but a Tester, or at least so little, that it was not sufficient to please dame Pleasure for her hire.
1683		Whores Rhetorick 205: A good Dame can blind the good Mans Eyes.
1696		J. Dunton Night-Walker Dec. 3: I had often heard that L--- C--- in the City, lay under the infamy of being a place of Assignation, betwixt City-Dames and their Sparks.
1861		(con. 1840s–1850s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 331/1: Other rough-looking young dames were skipping gaily along the street.
1871		C.G. Leland ‘Breitsmann in Forty-Eight’ Hans Breitmann in Europe 216: A shtudent vonce pring home a dame, / Und on de nexter day, / He pooled a ribbon from her neck.
1876		St Louis Globe-Democrat 19 Jan. n.p.: For women such [slang] phrases as ‘done,’ ‘dame,’ ‘girly,’ etc.
1891		G.R. Sims ‘The Collaborators’ Dagonet Ditties 100: They shocked a couple of aged dames.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 22 Apr. 1/2: The Belgian Society dame, who poisoned her relatives at £2000 a nob.
1902		‘Billy Burgundy’ Toothsome Tales Told in Sl. 19: There was a certain young dame.
1915		R. Lardner ‘Alibi Ike’ Coll. Short Stories (1941) 47: There wasn’t nobody outside o’ maybe Ike and the dame that felt worse over it than I and Carey.
1923		Wodehouse Leave it to Psmith (1993) 495: I made the biggest kind of a hit with the dame this necklace belongs to.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 211: I’m travelling fast and I can’t be bothered with no dame.
1930		E. Glyn Flirt and Flapper 43: [Speakeasies] are for ladies too — and even dames.
1935		H. McCoy They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (UK edn only) 89: Why, that dame is the biggest bitch west of the Mississippi River.
1936		Archie Seale Man About Harlem 3 Oct. [synd. col.] A fighter can be made to change his mind about fighting if he hooks up with a good gal, but a dame will only clip him slightly and drop him.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 136: She was a very simple-minded dame.
1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 44: Holy Mother, the twist that ratted on the Lane dame!
1954		(con. 1940s) E. Lambert Veterans 44: This town’s full of juicy young dames greedy for a good time.
1960		N. Hilliard Maori Girl 127: All they get there is [...] hard-case dames, and jokers who don’t know what to do with themselves.
1964		‘Charles Barrett’ Address: Kings Cross 79: ‘What a shape you have, Claudine. You wear nothing better than anyone I know, and I see plenty of near-nude dames’.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 47: Vinnie was hip to Lee, but she still looked like a lovely doll and he thought of her as a dame.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 119: It’s some crazy dame.
1981		S. Berkoff Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 8: Drop a morsel or two in your old dame.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We Have No 312: What you might call [...] a BDH – Big Dame Hunter.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 61: No way in the world is he sorting Nina. Someone must be. You couldn’t see a dame like her going without.