ladies

The regular plural for a noun ending in a consonant plus -y: the y becomes -ies, so lady becomes ladies. It keeps the polite tone of the singular, which is why it opens formal address in ladies and gentlemen. The same spelling once served as the old possessive, and on a door it names a room. C.S. Walter's Abandoned Bridges (2014) turns a LADIES TOILET into LADIES TO LET.

A British euphemism that began as ladies' (short for ladies' room) and lost its apostrophe along the way. It almost always takes the definite article, as in visit the ladies or pop into the ladies. Its natural partner is the gents. Although it looks plural, it names a single facility and is not counted, so you would not speak of two ladies in this sense.

Card players' slang for pocket queens, the two face-down hole cards dealt to a Texas hold 'em player. The queens become the ladies, and players speak of holding, raising with or slow-playing their ladies, treating the word as an ordinary plural noun. As a starting pair it ranks below kings and aces but above every other pair. That makes it strong, though not safe.