The word "matron" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used as a noun to refer to a married woman who is in charge of supervising other women, including those employed in a hospital, school, or other institution. For example, "The matron in charge of the orphanage was a kindly woman who looked after the children with care."
Her image is of a domineering matron of rigid moral standards, but in practice, she was more easygoing than that.
Tanty, the most prominent female character in the book, is a nosy old matron whose favourite pastime is discussing other people's business at the top of her voice in shops, as if she is "in the market-place back home".
Looked at through the eyes of a Latina matron, however, the provocative chanteuse-cum-actress might seem far too Anglo for her own good.
To get rid of the dirty gobbledegook he insisted on using, the matron brushed his teeth with bitter Fels-Naptha soap.In vain.
Remember the matron who objects to Hester Prynne's scarlet letter: "Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or suchlike heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!"But voters appear to be comfortable on the high horse.
He set up pyramids of plates to crash when people passed them, and rigged a mirror in a hat shop so that, when each matron posed simperingly before it, the glass cracked from side to side.
Were the ballad sung by a post-menopausal matron, though, the person at the other end of the line would probably be her daughter and the conversation would revolve around grandchildren.
She presents herself as the matron of a grand coalition that embraces all Germans.
As one well-coiffed (and Kyl-voting) matron in a shopping centre in affluent Scottsdale put it, "If they're here and they work hard and keep their nose clean, there should be a path of citizenship".
It helped her escape capture, not just because she could on occasion flirt her way out of trouble, but also because her Gestapo pursuers assumed any woman as skilful in evading them must be a butch matron (though because of her ability to scuttle off the Germans called her "the White Mouse").
Until then, there had been nothing remarkable about Cavell, who was charming, kind, but also, according to her matron, not particularly reliable, sometimes unpunctual and always annoyingly self-contained.
