"dear Sir or Madam" meaning in English

See dear Sir or Madam in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Forms: dear sir [alternative], dear Sir/Madam [alternative], dear Sirs [alternative], dear sirs [alternative], Dear Sirs or Madams [alternative]
Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} dear Sir or Madam
  1. Used as the salutation at the beginning of a formal letter when addressing persons of unknown gender. Related terms: to whom it may concern, noverint universi per præsentes [Latin]
    Sense id: en-dear_Sir_or_Madam-en-phrase-6gLTod-6 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dear sir",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dear Sir/Madam",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dear Sirs",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dear sirs",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "Dear Sirs or Madams",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "dear Sir or Madam",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used as the salutation at the beginning of a formal letter when addressing persons of unknown gender."
      ],
      "id": "en-dear_Sir_or_Madam-en-phrase-6gLTod-6",
      "links": [
        [
          "salutation",
          "salutation#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "to whom it may concern"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "Latin"
          ],
          "word": "noverint universi per præsentes"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "dear Sir or Madam"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dear sir",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dear Sir/Madam",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dear Sirs",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dear sirs",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "Dear Sirs or Madams",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "dear Sir or Madam",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "to whom it may concern"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "Latin"
      ],
      "word": "noverint universi per præsentes"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used as the salutation at the beginning of a formal letter when addressing persons of unknown gender."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "salutation",
          "salutation#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "dear Sir or Madam"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (51d164f and fb63907). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.