The Collaborative International Dictionary
Valet \Val"et\ (?; 277), n. [F. valet, OF. vallet, varlet, vaslet. See Varlet, and Vassal.]
A male waiting servant; a servant who attends on gentleman's person; a body servant.
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(Man.) A kind of goad or stick with a point of iron.
Valet de chambre[F.], a body servant, or personal attendant.
WordNet
n. a manservant who acts as a personal attendant to his employer; "Jeeves was Bertie Wooster's man" [syn: valet, gentleman, gentleman's gentleman, man]
Wikipedia
Valet de chambre , or varlet de chambre, was a court appointment introduced in the late Middle Ages, common from the 14th century onwards. Royal Households had many persons appointed at any time. While some valets simply waited on the patron, or looked after his clothes and other personal needs, itself potentially a powerful and lucrative position, others had more specialized functions. At the most prestigious level it could be akin to a monarch or ruler's personal secretary, as was the case of Anne de Montmorency at the court of Francis I of France. For noblemen pursuing a career as courtiers, like Étienne de Vesc, it was a common early step on the ladder to higher offices.
For some this brought entry into the lucrative court business of asking for favours on behalf of clients, and passing messages to the monarch or lord heading the court. Valets might supply specialized services of various kinds to the patron, as artists, musicians, poets, scholars, librarians, doctors or apothecaries and curators of collections. Valets comprised a mixture of nobles hoping to rise in their career, and those—often of humble origin—whose specialized abilities the monarch wanted to use or reward.
Usage examples of "valet de chambre".
And the youth dressed himself with a facility his valet de chambre had failed to rob him of during the two months of fashionable life he had led in Paris.
The count lifted a small bottle, decorated with silver, and motioned to the valet de chambre, who motioned to a slave, who took the bottle and held it at the proper distance beneath the imperial nose.