maid

plural maids

1. datedpoeticA girl or an unmarried young woman; maiden.

   Synonyms: damsel, maiden

2. An adult or adolescent female servant or cleaner (short for maidservant). (In feudal times this could be anyone from a high-ranking assistant to a low-ranking cleaner.)

   1 more example

   She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: ancilla, handmaiden, lady-in-waiting, maiden, maidservant, servingmaid, servingwoman, womanservant

3. archaicA virgin, now female but originally one of either gender.

   You are betrothed both to a maid and man.

   c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]

present singular third person maids · participle present maiding · participle past maided · past maided

1. raretransitiveTo serve as lady's maid to, to wait upon.

   And as she did so there came to her a comfortable recollection, an incident of her long-past youth, in the days when she, then Ellen Green, had maided a dear old lady.

   1913, Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes, The Lodger

1. astrologyThe constellation and zodiacal sign Virgo.

   Virgo, the Maid, guideth the Womb, Midriff and Guts.

   1668, ‘Godfridus’, The Knowledge of Things Unknown, London: G.P. for G. Sawbridge, page 20

   2 more examples

   The diamond is said to typify innocence, and it is also associated with Virgo, the maid, in the Signs of the Zodiac, whilst the ruby is associated with the sign Aries, the ram.

   1889 February 7, The Herald, Melbourne, page 4, column 3

   For they are so easy to recall if you do it in associated pairs—like the Maid and the Twins, the Bull and the Rain, the Fishes and the Scales.

   1947 November 14, Mountain District Free Press and Frentree Gully News, Tecoma, Vic., page 8, column 2

2. Joan of Arc

plural MAIDs · alternative MAiD

1. CanadaUSabbreviationacronymuncountablemedicineAcronym of medical assistance in dying.
2. InternetabbreviationacronymcountableadvertisingAcronym of mobile advertising ID.

1. CanadaalternativeuncountablemedicineAlternative form of MAID (“medical assistance in dying”).