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damsel in distress

DEFINITION
humorous
a young woman in trouble (with the implication that the woman needs to be rescued, as by a prince in a fairy tale):
"she makes a rather sweet damsel in distress"
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damsel in distress

Published March 19, 2018
WHAT DOES DAMSEL IN DISTRESS MEAN?
A damsel in distress is a young woman in danger. The term often refers to a stock character in fiction who is rescued by a male hero.

WHERE DOES DAMSEL IN DISTRESS COME FROM?
damsel in distress
RJ Carroll
Damsel—meaning a young woman, particularly a noblewoman—comes from French and Latin roots meaning “lady.” Captive damsels rescued by male heroes have long figured into myth and literature. Chained to a rock, the princess Andromeda is spared from a sea monster by the heroic Perseus (an example of a damsel in distress from ancient Greek legend). The trope became particularly popular in chivalric medieval romances.

The specific phrase damsel in distress emerges in English in the 17th and 18th centuries. A 1692 poem, “Sylvia’s Complaint,” describes a “damsel in distress” in a discussion of the age-old conflict between passionate lust and decent love. A similar phrase, lady in distress, appears in a mid-18th-century ballad, “The Spanish Lady.” Damsel in distress is also notably used in a 1755 translation of Don Quixote when a priest disguises himself as a damsel to win a favor from Don Quixote.

As the example from Don Quixote suggests, damsel in distress, while indeed used in earnest, is also often a conceit to expose the follies of men. In 1919, celebrated British humorist P.G. Wodehouse wrote a novel called A Damsel in Distress. In it, an American composer believes he is rescuing a noblewoman only to discover she truly loves someone else. The novel was adapted as a musical film in 1937, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin.