MAID

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does maid mean? 

• MAID (noun)
  The noun MAID has 2 senses:

1. a female domestic

2. an unmarried girl (especially a virgin)

  Familiarity information: MAID used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MAID (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A female domestic

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

amah; housemaid; maid; maidservant

Hypernyms ("maid" is a kind of...):

domestic; domestic help; house servant (a servant who is paid to perform menial tasks around the household)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "maid"):

chambermaid; fille de chambre (a maid who is employed to clean and care for bedrooms (now primarily in hotels))

handmaid; handmaiden (a personal maid or female attendant)

lady's maid (a maid who is a lady's personal attendant)

parlormaid; parlourmaid (a maid in a private home whose duties are to care for the parlor and the table and to answer the door)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An unmarried girl (especially a virgin)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

maid; maiden

Hypernyms ("maid" is a kind of...):

fille; girl; miss; missy; young lady; young woman (a young female)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "maid"):

damoiselle; damosel; damozel; damsel; demoiselle (a young unmarried woman)

Instance hyponyms:

Io ((Greek mythology) a maiden seduced by Zeus; when Hera was about to discover them together Zeus turned her into a white heifer)

Derivation:

maidhood (the childhood of a girl)

 Context examples 

‘Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,’ said the fellow with a sinister smile, and he slouched off after the maid to the kitchen.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Indeed, they had quite settled among themselves that she never was to be married, and they called her the old maid.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

At twenty-five, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly resolve that they never will be.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“This very night will I set apart a golden ouche to be offered on the shrine of my name-saint. I have pined for this, Aylward, as a young maid pines for her lover.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the early morning her maid came, and I left her in her care and took myself back home, for I was anxious about many things.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

This to a butcher's boy, a maid, and one or two loafers who had collected.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Willoughby Smith had been in his bedroom, which he uses as a sitting-room, but the maid heard him at that moment pass along the passage and descend to the study immediately below her.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I saw her in conversation with her maid.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I never saw her myself; but I've heard Leah, the house-maid, tell of her.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But still, you will be an old maid! and that's so dreadful!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)