amah
UK/ˈɑː.mə/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Singapore English/ˈɑː.mɑ/
amah noun: a woman employed to look after children; (formerly) a wet nurse.
Noun
amah (plural amahs)
- A woman employed to look after children; (formerly) a wet nurse.
- A female domestic helper; a maid.
- Then one day he disappeared and when Luke called apprehensively at his apartment the old amah told him that ‘Whisky Papa runrun London fastee.’1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 20
Forms of amah
| plural | amahs |
|---|---|
| alternative form | ama |
Origin of amah
From Portuguese ama (“female nurse”), from Medieval Latin amma (“wet nurse, amma”), perhaps an alteration of Latin mamma, of imitative origin, or from Ancient Greek.
Words that rhyme with amah
1 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about amah
- What does amah mean?
- Amah means a woman employed to look after children; (formerly) a wet nurse.
- What part of speech is amah?
- Amah is a noun.
- How do you pronounce amah?
- Amah is pronounced /ˈɑː.mə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of amah?
- The plural of amah is amahs.
Words near amah in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: amah (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “amah.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/amah. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.