police matron
- noun
- /pəˈlis ˈmeɪtrən/
- Archaic
:
matrona de policía
- During the protest, the police matron was responsible for supervising the detained women.
Examples
-
Police matrons lunge at Dottie as she leaps from the witness box to attack Mom.
Fiction book (1994) -
The police matron ensured the safety of the children in the custody of the station.
-
Escorted by two stern-faced police matrons.
Fiction book (1994) -
As the police matron, she helped the young girls feel safe while they waited for their parents.
Synonyms
16
1.1
A woman who works as a police officer
8
3.2
A woman who has an official job leading people in the police or army
A woman who is a police officer and enforces the law
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'police' (law enforcement organization) with 'matron' (a female supervisor), yielding a female officer who supervises women or children in custody. This noun–noun composition follows a normal, cross-linguistically common pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Police matron comes from the word matron, an old word for a woman who looks after people. Police stations hired such women to look after female prisoners and children, so the term came to mean 'a female officer' who watches and cares for people in custody.