Iron Lady
1
6.5
- noun
- Literature
:
Dama de Hierro
- As the first female Prime Minister, she was often referred to as the Iron Lady due to her unwavering political stance.
- Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher
- Iron Lady, a film
There is no such thing as society, said the Iron Lady.
- There is no such thing as society, said the Iron Lady.
- And she was conscious that there was a conflict between that and being the Iron Lady.
Examples
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They coincide with the attack on New Deal legislation—in the U.S., Thatcherism in the U.K. Remember the Iron Lady announced early on that "society doesn't exist."
Blog text (23) -
Margaret Thatcher earned the nickname Iron Lady for her strong leadership during her time as Prime Minister.
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Known as the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher was famous for her tough approach to governance and policy.
Synonyms
103
5.1
A British government leader who led the United Kingdom as its first woman Prime Minister and supported conservative policies
8
2.8
A British leader who was the first woman to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979 to 1990
Surface Forms
Morphology
The core meaning — a woman characterized as very strong, strict, or unyielding — is directly derivable from combining 'iron' (metaphorically very strong) with 'lady' (a woman), so a B1 learner who knows both words will recover the basic sense. The specific political/epithet use (as for leaders like Margaret Thatcher) is contextual but does not make the phrase non-compositional, making it broadly transparent.
Etymology
Iron Lady began as a nickname for Margaret Thatcher. After a forceful speech about the Soviet Union, a newspaper called her an 'Iron Lady'—a woman as hard and unbending as Iron, so the name came to mean a leader who is 'strong' and 'strict'.