maid
Americannoun
-
a female domestic employee who cleans tourist accommodations or does cleaning or other housework in a home.
a hotel maid.
-
a female domestic servant with any of various duties, especially in a large house (often used in combination).
a kitchen maid who assisted the cook; a handmaid; a lady’s maid; a nursery maid.
-
Archaic. a girl or young unmarried woman.
-
Archaic. a female virgin.
noun
-
archaic a young unmarried girl; maiden
-
-
a female servant
-
( in combination )
a housemaid
-
-
a spinster
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of maid
First recorded in 1225–1275; Middle English maide, maid, shortened variant of maiden
Explanation
A maid is a household worker who cleans and performs various other tasks. Today, only very wealthy people have maids — it's much more common to hire an occasional housekeeper or cleaner instead. In the US, it's uncommon to find a household with an actual maid, a servant who lives in the home and tidies it up, also doing jobs like ironing, grocery shopping, and cooking. In the old days, wealthy families employed maids who wore uniforms and sometimes waited on one individual woman, helping her dress herself and cleaning up after her. Maid, short for maiden, originally meant "unmarried woman."
Vocabulary lists containing maid
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Tanaka herself delightfully portrays the slightly dim family maid the “kids” enlist for their scheme.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 4, 2026
Ms. Millonzi’s most prominent roles are Roderigo, whose lust for Desdemona turns him into a useful tool in Iago’s hands, and Desdemona’s devoted maid and Iago’s wife, Emilia.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 3, 2026
Beetz stars as Asia, a young woman who turns up on the stoop of a high-end Manhattan apartment building, the Virgil, answering an ad for a maid job.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026
"It'd be nice for me to do something completely different. I'd love to do a comedy or I'd like to be a scullery maid in the kitchens in a period drama."
From BBC • Mar. 2, 2026
To support the household, my grandmother worked as a maid at a country club in Kingston.
From "I Can Make This Promise" by Christine Day
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
