Your Majesty

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Your Majesty (plural Your Majesties)

1. (formal) A term of address used in direct address to a monarch of higher rank than a prince, such as a king, queen, emperor, or empress.
   • 1911 [1854], “The Earl of Aberdeen to Queen Victoria, 17th January 1854”, in A. C. Benson, Viscount Esher, editors, The Letters of Queen Victoria‎^[1], volume 3, page 7:

     Knowing, as Lord Aberdeen does, that no political object is in view, he would feel ashamed to advise your Majesty to do anything at variance with that sympathy which your Majesty has been careful to keep within the bounds of prudence and moderation.

   • 1926, H. W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage‎^[2], page 339:

     Your Majesty may do as your Majesty will with your Majesty's ships.

   • 1991 [1063 CE], Patricia Buckley Ebrey, quoting Sima Guang, “Combating Heterodoxy and Vulgarity in Weddings and Funerals”, in Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China: A Social History of Writing about Rites‎^[3], Princeton University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 72:

     I have heard that Your Majesty wishes to have the great burial on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month and that the court has sent its commissioner to supervise the tomb work.

2. (informal, sarcastic) A sarcastic term of address to anyone who is (or is acting) pompous or bossy.

• If the reigning monarch is a prince or princess, the form is Your Highness.
• The exact forms vary somewhat from country to country.

Your Majesty (plural Your Majesties)

1. (formal) you (in direct address to such a monarch)
   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene vi]:

     All our service,
     In every point twice done and then double done,
     Were poor and single business to contend
     Against whose honors deep and broad wherewith
     Your Majesty loads our house.

   • c. 1845, Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte-Cristo, page 59:

     “Sire,” said Villefort, “the rapidity of the event must prove to your majesty that God alone can prevent it, by raising a tempest; what your majesty is pleased to attribute to me as profound perspicacity is simply owing to chance; and I have profited by that chance, like a good and devoted servant—that's all. Do not attribute to me more than I deserve, sire, that your majesty may never have occasion to recall the first opinion you have been pleased to form of me.”

• His Majesty, Her Majesty (third person)