Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An unmarried girl or woman.
- noun A woman or girl who is a virgin.
- noun A housemaid or chambermaid.
- noun A woman servant.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To do the work of a maid: usually referring to a lady's-maid.
- noun A young unmarried woman; a girl; specifically, a girl of marriageable age, but applied, usually with little or some other qualifying term, to a female child of any age above infancy: as, a maid, or a little maid, of ten summers.
- noun A woman, especially a young woman, who has preserved her virginity; a virgin.
- noun A man who has always remained continent.
- noun A female servant or attendant charged with domestic duties: usually with a specific designation, as a housemaid, chambermaid, nurse-maid, a maid of all work, etc. See the compounds, and phrases below.
- noun One of various fishes. The female of several species of skate.
- noun The thornback ray. Also called
maiden and maidenskate. - noun The twait-shad.
- noun The wryneck, Iynx torquilla.
- noun A sort of cheesecake.
- noun A game of cards played by any number of persons with a pack of fifty-one cards, one of the queens being thrown out; all cards that match are discarded, and that player in whose hand the odd queen is finally left is said to be caught, and doomed to be an old maid (or bachelor).
- noun The lapwing: from the fancy that old maids are changed into these uneasy birds after death.
- noun The common clam, Mya arenaria.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An unmarried woman; usually, a young unmarried woman; esp., a girl; a virgin; a maiden.
- noun obsolete A man who has not had sexual intercourse.
- noun A female servant.
- noun (Zoöl.), Prov. Eng. The female of a ray or skate, esp. of the gray skate (
Raia batis ), and of the thornback (Raia clavata ). - noun (Zoöl.) See under
Fair , a. - noun a female attendant of a queen or royal princess; -- usually of noble family, and having to perform only nominal or honorary duties.
- noun See under
Old .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
girl or anunmarried young woman;maiden . - noun A female
servant orcleaner (short formaidservant ). - noun archaic A
virgin of either gender.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an unmarried girl (especially a virgin)
- noun a female domestic
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Enter a maid, gazing at a mango branch, and behind her, a second_.) _First maid_.
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Got my truck washed too in case they need it for some reason as the maid is always getting me to take her somewhere.
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The children ask their mother when "auntie" - what they called the maid, is coming back.
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What a man with a good horse, and good wine, and good tobacco, wanteth a wife for, passeth my understanding, but I know thou art young, and the maid is a fair one.
The Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century
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- Her "maid" is poor Kirkcaldy Helen, one of the notabilities, and also blessings here; who staid with us (thanks chiefly, almost wholly, to the admirable/management/) for nearly twelve years on a stretch.
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Our maid is 4 months pregnant and has complications where she needs to rest (actually lie down most of the time) and cannot work.
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Little wonder that Elomire's maid is nearly mute; grotesque corruption can leave one speechless.
Fern Siegel: Stage Door: La Bete, A Life in the Theater, Lady Rizo
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Little wonder that Elomire's maid is nearly mute; grotesque corruption can leave one speechless.
Fern Siegel: Stage Door: La Bete, A Life in the Theater, Lady Rizo
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The gist of this cinematic gem is that an ordinary family wins a rather unordinary prize -- a smart house, complete with a holographic live-in maid who does everything from cleaning to cooking to mothering this single-parent family.
Katie Hawkes: Smart Phone Phobia: One Millennial's Aversion to Creepy Technology
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Our maid is 4 months pregnant and has complications where she needs to rest (actually lie down most of the time) and cannot work.
PossibleUnderscore commented on the word maid
Interestingly, in French, 'She helps me' translates to 'Elle m'aide'. I thought this had something to do with the etymology of this word, but it doesn't seem so... And yet, the co-incidence seems a bit too uncanny.
*muses*
March 1, 2010
Prolagus commented on the word maid
We need a name (and a list) for this particular kind of "fake false friend", where a foreign word that looks like an English one has a different etymology and is not a translation, but a somewhat related meaning.
(Can anyone think of more words like that?)
March 1, 2010