mayde

• maide; made, meyde (less common)
• mæide, meide (Early Middle English); maid, maud, mayd (Late Middle English)

An apocopic form of mayden, with generalisation of preconsonantal loss of /n/, as in clewe, filme, and game.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmæi̯d(ə)/

mayde (singularia tantum)

1. A young or unmarried woman.
2. A female child; a girl.

   Synonyms: girle (rare), las (Northern), mayden, mayden child, wenche

3. A maid; a female servant.
4. A virgin (of either sex; especially due to religious abstinence)
   • 1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “The Prologe of the Tale of the Wẏf of Bathe”, in The Tales of Caunt́bury (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: National Library of Wales, published [c. 1400–1410], →OCLC, folio 59, verso:

     Crıſt was a maẏde / and shapen as a man / And many a Seẏnt sıth / that the woꝛld bıgan / ẏet lẏued theẏ euere / ın ꝑfıt Chaſtıtee

     Christ was a virgin and shaped like a man, / like many saints since when the world began, / but they always lived in perfect chastity.

5. (uncommon) A woman of any age (as opposed to a man)

• This noun is not found in the plural in Middle English, probably since /n/ of the Early Middle English plural maidene, maidenen (← mæġdenu, mæġdena, mæġdenum) was protected by the following vowel.

• mayde child

• English: maid
  • → Afrikaans: meid
    • → English: meid
  • → Cebuano: maid
  • → French: maid
  • → Japanese: メイド (meidō), メード (mēdō)
    • → English: meido
  • → Middle Scots: maid, mayd
    • Scots: maid
  • → Portuguese: maid
  • → Spanish: maid
• Yola: mydhe, midhe, myde, mide, maide

• “maid(e, n. & adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
• “maid, n.¹”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.