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• slavey
  slavey

  noun

  a female servant, especially a maid of all work in a boardinghouse.
• Slavey
  Slavey

  noun

  a member of a group of Athabascan-speaking First Nations living in the upper Mackenzie River valley region of the Northwest Territories and in parts of British Columbia, Alberta, and the Yukon Territory.

slavey

¹ American  

[sley-vee] / ˈsleɪ vi /

noun

British Informal: Older Use.

• slaveys
  plural

1. a female servant, especially a maid of all work in a boardinghouse.

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Slavey ² American  

[sley-vee] / ˈsleɪ vi /

noun

• Slaveys,
  plural
• Slavey
  plural

1. a member of a group of Athabascan-speaking First Nations living in the upper Mackenzie River valley region of the Northwest Territories and in parts of British Columbia, Alberta, and the Yukon Territory.

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Slavey ¹ British  

/ ˈsleɪvɪ /

noun

1. a member of a Dene Native Canadian people of northern Canada

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slavey ² British  

/ ˈsleɪvɪ /

noun

1. informal a female general servant

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Slavey
  plural
• Slaveys
  plural
• slaveys
  plural

Etymology

Origin of slavey¹

First recorded in 1800–10; slave + -y ²

Origin of Slavey²

First recorded in 1785–80; from French esclave, literally, “slave,” a loan translation of Cree awahkān “captive, slave” (the Cree would make raids on and enslave this Athabascan people); the two-syllable pronunciation is a local variant derived from a spelling with the French suffix -ais

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

slavey Slavey slaveys

At 25, with an ailing husband to support, tiny Mrs. Gilmer was a women's-page slavey on the New Orleans Picayune, where she had started at $5 a week.

From Time Magazine Archive

She starts as a slavey, advances via an inheritance to the lordly Maxwell Towers, marries the glistening young Earl.

From Time Magazine Archive

The role best calculated to squeeze the sobs is that of the slavey; and talented Dorothy McGuire runs the whole gamut.

From Time Magazine Archive

When Falconer arrived in England Judy was whisked off to a farm in the country, where she was made the slavey of an ill-natured old nurse who treated her like a moral leper.

From Time Magazine Archive

White stucco and hemerald sun-blinds, trailed up with a fine "Glory" rose, And a slavey as pooty as pie, if it weren't for the smuts on her nose.

From Punch, or the London Charivari. Volume 93, September 10, 1887 by Various

“It’s nice to come out here and do some good stuff, instead of staying at home watching sports,” said volunteer Robert Slavey.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2019

In the field off Henderson Canyon Road that Slavey had explored with her husband, state park Ranger Steve Bier led a wildlife tour Saturday morning.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 2017

Slavey, who does marketing for a law firm, and her husband, Robert, left their home in San Diego early Saturday morning, and drove toward Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 2017

Heather Slavey squinted as she stared into the badlands.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 2017

Then the boy Thomas, otherwise called Slavey, may say, "There he goes again;" or Mrs. Ridley's own back-parlour bell rings vehemently, and Julia the cook will exclaim, "Lor, it's Mr. Frederick."

From The Newcomes Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family by William Makepeace Thackeray

The trades have been full of stories about wholesale firings; panicky studios have cut salaries of office slaveys and minor employees.

From Time Magazine Archive

Ve're chaffed and jeered by every cove, by slaveys on a bus; Our werry watermen are now our masters top of us.

From Punch - Volume 25 (Jul-Dec 1853) by Various

Why those plainclothes men are always courting slaveys.

From Ulysses by James Joyce

How I pity the long procession of "slaveys" who must have followed each other drearily in that lodging-house under the landlady's jurisdiction.

From The Motor Maid by C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson