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What is "maid"

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maid
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
maid
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
maid of honour
meter maid
old maid
parlour maid
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
old
▪ Half of her wants to be a fella, and the other half's a frustrated old maid.
▪ No, it went Prudence was a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
▪ She didn't want false teeth; they would make her look like an old maid.
▪ In his will he left £12 to be given to twelve old maids who were to act as pall bearers.
▪ She was an old maid and, I would guess, far too peculiar to gather other suitors.
▪ There is one who has been with us a long time - but then those are old maids of course.
▪ An old maid, perhaps, but what had Prudence accomplished to get rich?
young
▪ Out there, somewhere, is a man or woman who callously stabbed that young maid to death.
▪ A young maid, dressed in dark blue with a white lacy front and a white cap, opened the door.
▪ The door opened again, this time with a gentle touch, and the young Sri Lankan maid came in.
▪ There's a young maid lying dead.
■ NOUN
kitchen
▪ Often, one would be trained to carry out chores normally done by a kitchen maid.
▪ On the night of the dinner-party, it seems, the kitchen maid has allowed the meat to scorch.
▪ Her admitted object was the instruction of the kitchen maid, who had absorbed none of Mrs Geary's genius.
▪ A kitchen maid was usually the most menial servant in a house.
▪ Having been dismissed as a kitchen maid, she harnesses her poetry to her teapot.
▪ Phoebe needs a new kitchen maid.
■ VERB
tell
▪ You can also tell your maid when you like dinner served.
work
▪ They have gone to Rio to work as maids.
▪ The sisters were separated, Lore working as a maid and the others going to foster parents.
▪ It brought back sad memories of when I worked as a kennel maid.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A maid pushed her cleaning cart down the path toward the cottages out back.
▪ He had more than an hour to fill in before the meal: he had a maid bring him beer.
▪ One afternoon as he was hacking away on his violin, a maid appeared with a message from below.
▪ She became a ward maid in a hospital.
▪ The maid came into the room with a platter of sliced beef.
▪ Weekly maid and household laundry service included.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Maid

Maid \Maid\, n. [Shortened from maiden. ?. See Maiden.]

  1. An unmarried woman; usually, a young unmarried woman; esp., a girl; a virgin; a maiden.

    Would I had died a maid, And never seen thee, never borne thee son.
    --Shak.

    Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me.
    --Jer. ii. 3

  2. 2. A man who has not had sexual intercourse. [Obs.]

    Christ was a maid and shapen as a man.
    --Chaucer.

  3. A female servant.

    Spinning amongst her maids.
    --Shak.

    Note: Maid is used either adjectively or in composition, signifying female, as in maid child, maidservant.

  4. (Zo["o]l.) The female of a ray or skate, esp. of the gray skate ( Raia batis), and of the thornback ( Raia clavata). [Prov. Eng.]

    Fair maid. (Zo["o]l.) See under Fair, a.

    Maid of honor, a female attendant of a queen or royal princess; -- usually of noble family, and having to perform only nominal or honorary duties.

    Old maid. See under Old.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
maid

late 12c., "a virgin, a young unmarried woman," shortening of maiden (n.). Like that word, used in Middle English of unmarried men as well as women (as in maiden-man, c.1200, used of both sexes, reflecting also the generic use of man). Domestic help sense is from c.1300. In reference to Joan of Arc, attested from 1540s (French la Pucelle). Maid Marian, one of Robin Hood's companions, first recorded 1520s, perhaps from French, where Robin et Marian have been stock names for country lovers since 13c. Maid of Honor (1580s) originally was "unmarried lady of noble birth who attends a queen or princess;" meaning "principal bridesmaid" is attested from 1895. Maydelond (translating Latin terra feminarum) was "the land of the Amazons."

Wiktionary
maid

n. 1 (context dated or poetic English) A girl or an unmarried young woman; maiden. 2 A female servant or cleaner (short for maidservant).

Related phrases:
WordNet
maid

  1. n. a female domestic [syn: maidservant, housemaid, amah]

  2. an unmarried girl (especially a virgin) [syn: maiden]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Maid

A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female person employed in domestic service. Although now usually found only in the most wealthy of households, in the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work.

Maid (disambiguation)

A maid is a female employed in domestic service.

Maid, MAID or Maids may also refer to:

  • Maid (title), a title granted to the eldest daughter of a Scottish Laird
  • Maiden, a virginal woman
  • Massive array of idle disks, a data storage system
  • Maids (film), a film directed by Fernando Meirelles and Nando Olival
  • Maids (2015 TV series), a South Korean costume drama
Maid (title)

Maid is a title granted to the eldest daughter of a Laird. The title is not often used today but can still be used. The title is customary and not automatically given.

The eldest daughter of a Laird is entitled to place the title at the end of her name along with the Lairdship therefore becoming "Miss [Firstname] [Lastname], Maid of [Lairdship]." Only placing the word "Maid" at the end of the name is incorrect as the Lairdship must be included.

As the title is customary and not automatic, it means that the eldest daughter can choose if they wish to take on this title, if they choose not to they are simply addressed as "Miss [Firstname] [Lastname] of [Lairdship]"

If the eldest daughter is the heir apparent to a Lairdship, she has the choice to either take on the title "Younger" (see. Younger (title)) or to remain titled as "Maid of [x]". Once they take on the Lairdship in their own right they will then become styled as "Lady" and the title of "Maid of [x]" will pass onto their eldest daughter if any.

The title "maid of [x]" is held for life unless the eldest daughter becomes a "Lady" in her own right and so no one else can be given this title during the lifetime of another Maid. If a Laird has a son who is the heir apparent but still has an elder daughter she is still entitled to become styled as Maid

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "maid".

While he was reasoning with himself, whether he should acquaint these poor people with his suspicion, the maid of the house informed him that a gentlewoman desired to speak with him.

If you scorn the maid at your window I will aerogram my immediate acceptance of a proposal of marriage that has been made to your poor Ada a month ago in Valentine State.

Fausta as the other women bustled around her, cutting the cord and helping her to deliver the afterbirth while the maids washed and swaddled the child.

Previously Jacqueline and Alienor had shared the third tent with their maids, but Jacqueline was more than happy to move into the newly empty tent.

Garden of Forty Felicitous Fragrances, Fainting Maid was insulting the intelligence of her ladies-in-waiting in the Gallery of Precious Peacocks, and the Ancestress was chiding a servant who had dropped a cup on the Terrace of Sixty Serenities.

Of course everyone understood that the Ancestress had no intention of burying her wealth with Fainting Maid, but the display was customary, and it was also designed to make lesser mortals turn green with envy.

Impatient to gain possession of her I took off my clothes, and on getting into bed to her I was astonished to find her a maid.

Honour, her maid, attended her at the usual hour, she was found already up and drest.

The reader then must know, that the maid who at present attended on Sophia was recommended by Lady Bellaston, with whom she had lived for some time in the capacity of a comb-brush: she was a very sensible girl, and had received the strictest instructions to watch her young lady very carefully.

As he spoke, he pushed gently past the maid, leading Avis by the hand.

Today there were not half a dozen carriages and omnibuses altogether, and the bathers were few-nursery maids, fragments of a day-excursion, and some of the fair conventionists.

I had been in the garden for a few minutes when heavy rain began to fall, and I was going to leave, when the empress summoned me into an apartment on the ground floor of the palace, where she was walking up and down with Gregorovitch and a maid of honour.

Her maid begged me to go in quietly for fear of awakening her, and then left me and shut the door.

The maids in the city house had somehow never had it, but perhaps that was because of the way Father had treated them, brushing against them sometimes in the hallway, when he thought no one was looking, using the serving spoon so btessinp - j i that the upper part of his arm gently touched the curve of a breast beneath a white bib and gray cotton.

The maid had set out five bone china plates holding salads that combined Bibb lettuce, avocado slices, and wedges of ripe pear with a crumbling of Gorgonzola.