Word.ws English Dictionary

house-keeper

house-keeper is the dated form of housekeeper.

Meaning of housekeeper

Noun

housekeeper (plural housekeepers)

  1. 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.
    • She was their third housekeeper, but after a month or so she also gave up.
  2. Someone who manages the running of a home, traditionally the female head of the household.
  3. (archaic, colloquial) Someone who keeps to their house; someone who rarely ventures away from home; an unadventurous person, a homebody.
    • 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.1915, John Buchan, Salute to Adventurers
  4. (archaic) Someone who owns a house as a place of residence; a householder.
    • 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.1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

Forms of house-keeper

pluralhouse-keepers

Questions about house-keeper

What is house-keeper the dated form of?
House-keeper is the dated form of housekeeper.

Words near house-keeper in the dictionary

  1. house-hunted
  2. house-hunter
  3. house-hunters
  4. house-hunting
  5. house-hunts
  6. house-keeper
  7. house-keepers
  8. house-like
  9. house-maid
  10. house-maids
  11. house-plunder

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: house-keeper (page history and authors); housekeeper (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: “house-keeper.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/house-keeper. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.