Jill of all trades and mistress of none

plural Jills of all trades and mistresses of none

1. alternativeAlternative form of Jill of all trades, mistress of none.

   This is no time for dabsters, for half-trained, under-equipped girls and women. So much of the education girls receive tends to make them Jills of all trades and mistresses of none.

   1917 June 1, Marguerite Mooers Marshall, quoting Mrs. F. H. Dike, “Efficiency in Patriotism Puts Women on Firm Basis For Service to Country: Women’s Section of Navy League Starts a School to Teach It”, in The Evening World, New York, N.Y.: The Press Publishing Co., page 7, column 1

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   Every mistress of a household will understand my meaning when it is explained, that a young girl, having served in four or five different houses, will have done so in a different capacity in each. She will have been nursemaid, maid of all work, cook and housemaid, sewing maid, and consequently a Jill of all trades and mistress of none.

   1875 January, [Marie von Bothmer], “German Home Life.—By a Lady.—I. Servants.”, in Fraser’s Magazine, volume XI, number LXI, page 41, column 2

   The German servant is, indeed, hopelessly uncouth, unhandy, and doggedly self-satisfied, Jill of all trades and mistress of none, and neat-handed Phillises are unknown in the scheme of Teuton creation.

   1876 August 19, “German Home Life. (Longmans & Co.)”, in The Athenæum: Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama, number 2547, page 231, column 1

   WHAT is a sempstress? […] So far as we can make out, she is Jill of all trades and mistress of none. Dressmakers abuse her for taking work out of their hands, and upholsteresses say that she intrudes where she is not wanted. We shall class her here as the maker of underclothing; not only as an unskilled hand in her own home, but as a skilled machinist working for her daily bread in metropolitan factories.

   1889, the “British Weekly” commissioners, “Sempstresses—West End Tailoresses”, in [Margaret Harkness], editor, Toilers in London; or, Inquiries Concerning Female Labour in the Metropolis. Being the Second Part of “Tempted London.”, London: Hodder and Stoughton, […], page 236

   It was to the last class that [Stéphanie Félicité,] Madame [de Genlis] belongs, and perhaps her boast of her knowledge of half-a-dozen languages, and her proficiency on no fewer than nine instruments, among them what Victor Hugo called “the bug-pipes,” and of her acquaintance with field labour and gardening, may simply mean that she was Jill of all trades and mistress of none; […]

   1891 April 3, “Four Frenchwomen”, in The Morning Post, number 37,067, London, page 3, column 2

   That New York skirt dancer arrested for non-support of his family, who is a female impersonator and can paint, teach music, and do beautiful embroidery seems to be a Jill of all trades and mistress of none.

   1898 June 15, Lewiston Evening Journal, 5 p. m. edition, Lewiston, Me., page 4, column 2