also: うえざま · かみさま
Historical honorific for the emperor or shogun; used in pre-modern contexts.
In the Edo period, 上様 was an honorific title for the shogun.
honored person
General honorific for a person of high status; now rare and mostly historical.
In the past, people sometimes called their superiors 上様.
Only with reading かみさま
Polite, old-fashioned term for someone else's wife; reading restricted to かみさま.
'Is your wife well?' is a polite expression that is rarely used nowadays.
Standard kanji spelling for the reading うえさま.
Rare reading; historical or archaic variant.
Polite reading used for 'wife' sense; restricted to that meaning.
Compound of 上 (うえ, 'above') + 様 (さま, honorific suffix). The reading かみさま uses the older かみ reading for 上.