Adele Zay (29 February 1848 – 29 December 1928) was a Transylvanian teacher, feminist and pedagogue. Her family were part of the German-speaking community of the Kingdom of Hungary. Because of her father's death during her infancy, Zay's education was interrupted by periods where she taught to earn money in order to continue private and formal studies. In 1880 after studying abroad in Vienna and Gotha, she passed her primary education certification for Germany and Hungary. The following year, she was certified as a secondary teacher, becoming the first Transylvanian woman to have earned a higher education. From 1875 to 1884, she taught at the Institute of Irma Keméndy in Szeged.