In German, () Fräulein (literally, "little woman" or "little Mrs.", pronounced ) was used as a title for young girls and unmarried women as opposed to Frau for married women. It is used with the first name or last name (Fräulein Anna or Fräulein Schmidt).

Today, the expression is mostly considered derogatory and is seldom used. It is nowadays universally considered appropriate to address all women as Frau (plus last name). It may still be used when addressing very young women, e.g. high school students by their teachers, or underage girls.

Fräulein can be translated as Miss in English; Signorina in Italian; Mademoiselle in French; Señorita in Spanish; Maighdeann-uasal in Scottish Gaelic; and Iníon or Ógbhean-uasal in Irish.

Literature and film have preserved the old usage very well, in some cases already in the title. Examples are E.T.A. Hoffmann's tale Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1819), Elizabeth von Arnim's epistolary novel Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther (1907), and the comedy film Fräulein vom Amt (1954), whose title was a common phrase denoting a female operator at a telephone exchange. In an earlier comedy film, Unser Fräulein Doktor (1940), Jenny Jugo plays Dr. Elisabeth Hansen, a young attractive teacher at a gymnasium who has to fight to be taken seriously as an intellectual.

"Fräulein" is also the title of a 1960s song sung in German by Chris Howland ^*.

See also

• Gender-neutral language
• List of German expressions in English

German loanwords | Women's social titles | Fräulein