housemaid

plural housemaids · alternative house maid · alternative house-maid

1. A female domestic worker responsible for cleaning a house.

   With a dramatic gesture, he pointed to a large splash of candle grease on the floor by the writing-table. "It must have been done since yesterday, otherwise a good housemaid would have at once removed it with blotting-paper and a hot iron. […]”

   1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

2. derogatoryA housewife.

present singular third person housemaids · participle present housemaiding · participle past housemaided · past housemaided · alternative house maid · alternative house-maid

1. To be a housemaid.
2. To wait on someone hand on foot, to watch them.
3. To clean, as a housemaid.

   1 more example

   Giving that up, she took a broom and a duster and went upstairs to housemaid Mrs Dibble's bedroom, with her head tied up in a coloured scarf. It was a dusty, snuffy job, for penuriousness in Mrs Dibble refused to throw anything away, including dirt, and if anything fell on the floor it remained there.

   1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 32