Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A woman bondservant.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A female slave, or a female bound to service without wages.
Wiktionary
- n. A female bondservant.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A female slave, or one bound to service without wages, as distinguished from a hired servant.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a female slave
- n. a female bound to serve without wages
Etymologies
- bond + maid (Wiktionary)
- bond(woman) + maid. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And as a bondmaid steals away from a wealthy house, whom fate has lately severed from her native land, nor yet has she made trial of grievous toil, but still unschooled to misery and shrinking in terror from slavish tasks, goes about beneath the cruel hands of a mistress; even so the lovely maiden rushed forth from her home.”
“He asked them what women they were; and, little as the thing seems like to be, the bondmaid answered for the twain, telling of the fall of King Sigmund and King Eylimi, and many another great man, and who they were withal who had wrought the deed.”
“Then went the bondmaid home, and told Sigrun, and sang —”
“All this they bore to the ships of King Alf, and Hjordis and bondmaid went them.”
“Then the king asks if they wotted where the wealth of the king was bestowed; and then says the bondmaid — “It may well be deemed that we know full surely thereof.””
“So Sigmund said he would come and meet them in battle, and drew his power together; but Hjordis was borne into the wood with a certain bondmaid, and mighty wealth went with them; and there she abode the while they fought.”
“From the publication of the first volume, Murray and his fellow editors had been collecting material for a supplement, painfully aware of omissions (bondmaid, collide, radium, appendicitis).”
“And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.”
“For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.”
“Winchester lovingly describes the nuts-and-bolts of dictionary making -- how unexpectedly tricky the dictionary entry for marzipan was, or how fraternity turned out so much longer and monkey so much more ancient that anticipated -- and how bondmaid was left out completely, its slips found lurking under a pile of books long after the B-volume had gone to press.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bondmaid’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Stocks and Bonds
stock, bond, stocks and bonds, stockyard, bail bonds, Gary U.S. Bonds, James Bond, stockade, lock, stock and b..., bondmaid, bonded warehouse, bondsman and 57 more...
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hagendas 2008
mise-en-scene, occultation, lodestone, obdurate, remontoire, filigree, insensate, carapace, vicissitude, verdigris, indivuation, intercalate and 224 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bondmaid.
hagendas the one and only word that was lost in compiling the original OED according to Simon Winchester in "The Meaning of Everything" and "The Professor and the Mad Man" Jan 12, 2009