place aux dames
Preserved but no longer current.
Make way for the ladies; ladies first. Placebo (plas e' bo) (Lat., I shall please, or be acceptable). Vespers for the dead; because the first antiphon at Vespers of the Office of the Dead began with the words Placebo Domino in regione vivorum, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living (Ps. cxvi, 9).
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “place aux dames” mean?
Make way for the ladies; ladies first. Placebo (plas e' bo) (Lat., I shall please, or be acceptable). Vespers for the dead; because the first antiphon at Vespers of the Office of the Dead began with the words Placebo Domino in regione vivorum, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living (Ps. cxvi, 9).
Is “place aux dames” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.