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.
   • 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.1946, William Hatfield, Buffalo Jim, Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege, page 70
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