scullery

American  

[skuhl-uh-ree, skuhl-ree] / ˈskʌl ə ri, ˈskʌl ri /

noun

Chiefly British.

• sculleries
  plural

1. a small room or section of a pantry in which food is cleaned, trimmed, and cut into cooking portions before being sent to the kitchen.

2. a small room or section of a pantry or kitchen in which cooking utensils are cleaned and stored.

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scullery British  

/ ˈskʌlərɪ /

noun

1. a small room or part of a kitchen where washing up, vegetable preparation, etc is done

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• sculleries
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of scullery

1300–50; Middle English squillerye < Middle French escuelerie, equivalent to escuele dish (< Latin scutella, diminutive of scutra pan) + -rie -ry

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Explanation

You're most likely to see the word scullery in an English novel, since it's a small room off the kitchen, usually in a very old, very British home. In the old days, maids cleaned dishes and utensils — and sometimes clothing — in the scullery, out of sight of their wealthy employers. In some parts of Britain, the word scullery is still used to mean "kitchen," although few people would claim to employ a "scullery maid," or a low-ranking member of a household staff. The root of the word is in doubt, but it probably comes from the Latin word for wooden platter, scutra, or the Old Norse skola, "to wash."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

scullery sculleries

"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

Dunk and Egg’s camaraderie fits the same tradition, proposing scullery maids can become queens.

From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2026

One day she fell into conversation with a street musician after giving him some money and he encouraged her to follow his example, saying it would likely pay more than her scullery job.

From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2023

A cruel stepmother reduces her dead husband’s only child to the role of scullery maid, but a kindly beggar woman and some helpful mice bring about a change in the young woman’s fortunes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2019

Dark bars of iron stood heavy and still between him and the dimly lit scullery beyond.

From "The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage" by Philip Pullman

For the first time, some of the men who had toiled anonymously in the palace sculleries stepped into the throne room.

From Time Magazine Archive

It contained numerous little ante-rooms, garrets, closets, and box-rooms, little landings with balustrades, little statues on carved wooden pillars, and all kinds of back passages and sculleries.

From Virgin Soil by R. S. Townsend

They passed through the hall; thence down a stone stairway into an ample vaulted kitchen, and thence along a slate-flagged corridor flanked by sculleries, larders and other kitchen offices.

From News from the Duchy by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

There are very few establishments large enough to indulge in the luxury of a servants'-hall, and sculleries and pantries are much smaller than in England.

From Town Life in Australia by Richard Ernest Nowell Twopeny

He next went into the kitchen and the sculleries and locked the outer doors in that quarter.

From The Lion's Share by Arnold Bennett

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