housekeeper

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See also: house keeper and house-keeper

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From house +‎ keeper.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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housekeeper (plural housekeepers)

  1. (now rare) Someone who owns a house as a place of residence; a householder. [from 15th c.]
    • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:
      He was often heard to express his fears of coming upon the parish; and to bless God, that, on account of his having been so long a housekeeper, he was intitled to that provision.
  2. Someone (traditionally a woman) employed to look after the home, typically by managing domestic servants or superintending household management; also someone with equivalent duties in a hotel, institution etc. [from 16th c.]
    She was their third housekeeper, but after a month or so she also gave up.
    • 1946, William Hatfield, Buffalo Jim, Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege, page 70:
      The housekeeper, a very decorative brunette of thirty-five with a pseudo-English accent, greeted him with a mixture of grateful effusion and condescending patronage.
    • 1987 December 13, Elizabeth Pincus, “Copping To The Mop Scandal”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 22, page 1:
      When management of the toney Copley Plaza Hotel ordered housekeepers recently to put down their mops and hand wash the floors, a furor arose among the hotel cleaning staff. Local union representatives and others concerned with issues affecting women workers also rallied in anger to protest the directive, which in essence forced housekeepers to scrub on their hands and knees.
  3. Someone who manages the running of a home, traditionally the female head of the household. [from 17th c.]
  4. (colloquial, now rare) Someone who keeps to their house; someone who rarely ventures away from home; an unadventurous person, a homebody. [from 18th c.]
    • 1915, John Buchan, Salute to Adventurers:
      I do assure you he is no house-keeper. I have seen him in desperate conflict with savage men, and even with His Majesty's redcoats.

Coordinate terms

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Translations

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