Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) a courtesan, a kept woman, a prostitute.

1610–20		‘The Westminster Whore’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 5: Madam P. hath a thing at her breech, / Sucks up all the scad of the town; / She’s a damned lasivious bitch, / And fucks for halfe a crown.
1623		Massinger Bondman II ii: A wayter so trayn’d vp were worth a million, To a wanton Citie Madam.
1632		R. Brome Covent-Garden Weeded III i: I stole from him, to see if your Italick Mystresse were come yet. Your Madam.
1659		Greene & Lodge Lady Alimony II ii: The next in rank is that mincing madam Julippe.
1660		Wandring Whore II 7: Many of these are new Madams to me, but old Traders no question with others.
1696		J. Dunton Night-Walker Sept. 3: The next attack was a City Madam, with a melancholly Air in her Face.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus II:4 12: Sparks with Madams very fine.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy IV 139: Hide-park may be term’d the Market of Madams.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 45: He pick’d up a Madam near St. Dunstan’s Church.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1788		‘The Irish Robber’s Adventure’ Irish Songster 3: As thro’ covent garden we stroled away, / With my fresh Madam going to the play.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.

(b) (also madame) a bawd; the proprietor of a male or female brothel [presumably from sense 1a but perhaps a play on SE madam, honorific for the mistress of a house/house n.¹ (1)].

1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 211: She we call a Town Madam, Is infected with a foul Suburbs stink.
c.1775		Only True and Exact Calendar title page: Madam Hopkins, from Drury-Lane.
a.1800		‘Female Auction’ Cracks Garland 5: The Old Madams sells off their Stocks Of Misses.
1859		Wkly Varieties (Boston, MA) 3 Sept. 7/3: Old Madam Bell [...] has undergone a thorough renovation; beg pardon, don’t mean the madam, I mean her house.
1870		Barnsley Chron. 26 Mar. 6/1: He had a good deal to say about [...] painted madams in the great Babylon.
1871		N.Y. Herald 29 July 6/2: The Madame [...] sent her to an infamous den in Forsyth street kept by a Mrs. Hines [DA].
1880		Henley & Stevenson Deacon Brodie II tab.IV viii: What about your fine-madam sister?
1910		Committee of Fourteen Social Evil in N.Y. City 26: The ‘madam’ at the door told the men that her house had been closed but would reopen in a few days.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 36: The madam opened the door and called out, ‘Oh, girls, come downstairs every one of you.’.
1933		H. Asbury Barbary Coast 247: The mistress of such an establishment was always called Miss by the inmates, but the customers addressed her—and with considerable respect, too,—as Madame.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 106: The ‘madames’ are [...] the impresarios of the vice parlours.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 54: I beat it down to a whorehouse and sold [the coat] to the madam for $150.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 39: The bawdy houses were shuttered or torn down for parking lots, and the madames had scattered to wherever retired madames go.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 10: Whorehouse madams were exchanging reminiscences about their former client.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 29: madam(e) (n.): Male proprietor, most always homosexual, of a peg house or a show house (q.v.). He is the counterpart of the female mistress of a brothel.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 283: They gave up fifty per cent of the scratch to a madam.
1976		Cab Calloway Of Minnie the Moocher and Me 62: You might think it would bother me to be living in a house run by a madam.
1982		P. Bailey An Eng. Madam 68: She didn’t know she was drinking tea with a future madam.
1998		C. Fleming High Concept 129: Conti used to catch girls and turn them on to madams for a fee.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 121: Susan, the madam, is a former working girl herself.
2012		J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 225: You could be a model — or a madam.

(c) a general term of contempt for a woman, esp. one whose lifestyle does not reflect her self-appraisal.

1874

S. Beauchamp Grantley Grange I. 68: ‘I do not think they [hop-pickers] are troubled with much shyness.’ ‘O, not a bit of it, Sir Charles...they’re brazen madams, and quite above my hands’ [OED].

(d) a handkerchief [? its ostensible respectability, ‘femininity’].

1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 503: I tore up my madam (handkerchief) and tied the wedge in small packets and put them into my pockets.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 276: Have you ever been on top of an old-fashioned ’bus [...] and sat behind a female woman? Have you ever seen her pocket gaping wide, with maybe her purse or madam sticking out and simply crying to be pinched?
1923		J.C. Goodwin ‘Criminal Sl.’ in Sidelights on Criminal Matters 164: [of changing one’s clothes] One day he sent me a stiff to go to Margate with him on the rattler. I wrung myself and took a new madam, and went there, dodging a nark on the way.
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 191/1: Madam. Handkerchief.

(e) (US gay) an (older) homosexual man.

1703		T. Baker Tunbridge Walks III i: We meet together at my Chambers, There’s Beau Simper, Beau Rabbitsface, Beau Eithersex, [...] we [...] play with Fans, and mimick the Women, Skream, hold up your Tails, make Curses, and call one another Madam—.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 129: madam[e] 1. mature homosexual man.
2003		K. Cage Gayle.