Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A housemaid or children's nurse in South Asia.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In the East Indies, a native waiting-woman or lady's-maid; a nurse.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun India A native nurse for children; also, a lady's maid.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A native female servant or
maid , especially working for Europeans in South Asia.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (in India) a native nursemaid who looks after children
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
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And yet, after watching the film last night, I remembered the following ayah from the Qur'an:
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For which reason she called her ayah, while the Sahib was in his bath before dinner and said to her hurriedly:
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India is the problem, and your ayah is the answer.
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Desiring to know what was for why, and what was for stomach one day, the lady called the ayah to her and sought the interpretation thereof.
The Khaki Kook Book A Collection of a Hundred Cheap and Practical Recipes Mostly from Hindustan
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Abu Hurairah (radiAllahu anhu) narrated; In Surah al-Baqaraah there is an ayah which is the best of all the ayahs of the Qur'an.
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In it there is an ayah which is the greatest in the Qur'an: Ayat al-Kursi
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Sambutan berlangsung cukup hangat, sebagai seorang "ayah" beliau memberikan tuntunan pada anak-anaknya untuk terus melangkah maju dan berkembang.
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This shows the temper of the people generally; my ayah is a very ignorant old woman, yet she respects her Emaum's memory. [
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We were living in Kolkata and I was out for the day with Nilmoni, my ayah.
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While it was my year of greatest confusion, it was also a time of practical lessons to supplement those of my daily ayah.
chained_bear commented on the word ayah
"If ladies did not want to eat in the mess a cook would bring them meals in their tent and they were usually attended by an ayah (maid) and other domestic servants who would sweep and clean their tents, shooing away unwanted visitors such as rats and cockroaches..." (p. 56)
"'I am not praising myself, dear Mama, but only wish you to know that it is quite possible for a lady to exert herself in this Country. I keep no ayah ladies' maid, which diminishes the expenses of our establishment not a little. Hannay often insists on my having one, but I will not indulge in such laziness unless obliged by ill health.'"
—Annabel Venning, Following the Drum: The Lives of Army Wives and Daughters Past and Present (London: Headline, 2005), 71
May 5, 2010