stewardess
Americannoun
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a woman flight attendant.
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a woman who attends to the comfort of passengers on a ship, train, or bus.
noun
Gender
See -ess.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of stewardess
1625–35 for earlier sense “female steward”; 1930–35 stewardess for def. 1; steward + -ess
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.
The star appeared as an air stewardess, twirling her way through baggage reclaim while shrugging off a bevy of useless men – a surgeon, a priest, a magician, an astronaut.
From BBC • Feb. 2, 2026
On an airplane, recently, she noticed that when the stewardess came around offering coffee and tea, a surprising number of adults opted for hot chocolate.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 4, 2025
In 1958, when Mary Pat Laffey Inman became a stewardess — as they were then called — for Northwest Airlines, she was 20 years old and the clock was already ticking.
From New York Times • Feb. 19, 2024
David Zucker: My favorite has always been when the stewardess says, "I've never been so scared, and besides, I am 26 and I'm not married."
From Salon • Oct. 3, 2023
He feels hungry all of a sudden, wishes he’d thought to save the bagel the stewardess had handed him on the plane.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
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.
