maid

From Middle English mayde, maide, abbreviation of Middle English maiden from Old English mæġden (Old English mǣden). Ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *magaþ, from Proto-Germanic *magaþs (“girl, virgin”).

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /meɪd/

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /med/
• (Wales, without the pane–pain merger) IPA^(key): /meid/
• Rhymes: -eɪd
• Homophone: made (pane–pain merger)

maid (plural maids)

1. (dated or poetic) A girl or an unmarried young woman; maiden.

   Synonyms: damsel, maiden

3. 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.)

   Hyponyms: lady's maid, chamberer, chambermaid, maidservant, servingmaid

   Coordinate term: man

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

     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.

4. (archaic) A virgin, now female but originally one of either gender.
   • 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]:

     You are betrothed both to a maid and man.

• In the sense of a girl or unmarried woman, the term is often used in the common (species) names of flowering plants.
• In the sense of a maidservant, the term has also been internationalized to a character design describing a young girl in a maid uniform.

• (female servant): ancilla, handmaiden, lady-in-waiting, maiden, maidservant, servingmaid, servingwoman, womanservant
• (female cleaner): chambermaid (in a hotel), charlady (in a house), charwoman (in a house), cleaning lady (in a house), cleaneress (rare term)

maid (third-person singular simple present maids, present participle maiding, simple past and past participle maided)

1. (transitive, rare) To serve as lady's maid to, to wait upon.
   • 1913, Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes, The Lodger:

     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.

• Dima, Madi, aim'd, amid, diam, diam.

• IPA^(key): /maid/
• IPA^(key): /mɛd/
• Hyphenation: ma‧id

maid

1. none, nothing

• wache, wacha

From English maid, Middle English mayde, maide, abbreviation of maiden. Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *magaþs (“maid, virgin”).

maid

1. a female servant or cleaner; a maidservant, a housemaid

   Synonyms: katabang, muchacha, mutsatsa

maid

1. partitive plural of maa

maid

1. partitive singular of mai
2. nominative plural of mai

Unadapted borrowing from English maid.

maid f (plural maids)

1. maid, especially in reference to Japanese fiction or in reference to the French maid outfit

   Synonyms: femme de ménage, soubrette

From Proto-Finnic *maito, possibly from Proto-Finno-Permic *majδ̕ɜ. Cognates include Finnish maito.

maid

1. milk

maid

1. (Late Middle English, West Riding) alternative form of mayde

• (Kautokeino) IPA^(key): /ˈmajt/

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

maid

1. also, too

• Eino Koponen, Klaas Ruppel, Kirsti Aapala, editors (2002–2008), Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages‎^[1], Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

maid

1. accusative/genitive plural of mii

• IPA^(key): /ˈmaðʲ/

·maid

1. third-person singular present indicative conjunct of maidid

maid

1. alternative form of maith (“good”)

Unadapted borrowing from English maid.

maid f (plural maids)

1. maid, especially in reference to Japanese fiction or in reference to the French maid outfit

Unadapted borrowing from English maid.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmeid/ [ˈmei̯ð̞]
• Rhymes: -eid
• Syllabification: maid

maid f (plural maids)

1. maid, especially in reference to Japanese fiction or in reference to the French maid outfit

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

From Proto-Finnic *maito, possibly from Proto-Finno-Permic *majδ̕ɜ. Cognates include Finnish maito.

maid

1. milk

• hapanmaid
• pihtimaid
• rahtmaid
• maidnedalʹ

• Zajceva, N. G.; Mullonen, M. I. (2007), “молоко”, in Uz’ venä-vepsläine vajehnik / Novyj russko-vepsskij slovarʹ [New Russian–Veps Dictionary]‎^[2], Petrozavodsk: Periodika