Word.ws English Dictionary

parlourmaid

parlourmaid noun: a maid whose primary tasks involve direct interaction with her employers and their guests, such as serving food and answering the door.

Noun

parlourmaid (plural parlourmaids)

  1. (UK) A maid whose primary tasks involve direct interaction with her employers and their guests, such as serving food and answering the door.
    • Then catching sight of Dorcas, the parlourmaid, going into the dining-room, she called to her to bring some stamps into the boudoir.1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Forms of parlourmaid

pluralparlourmaids
alternative formparlormaid

Origin of parlourmaid

From parlour + maid.

Questions about parlourmaid

What does parlourmaid mean?
Parlourmaid means a maid whose primary tasks involve direct interaction with her employers and their guests, such as serving food and answering the door.
What part of speech is parlourmaid?
Parlourmaid is a noun.
What is the plural of parlourmaid?
The plural of parlourmaid is parlourmaids.

Words near parlourmaid in the dictionary

  1. parlour tricks
  2. parlour-game
  3. parlour-games
  4. parlourish
  5. parlourless
  6. parlourmaid
  7. parlourmaids
  8. parlours
  9. parlous
  10. parlously
  11. parlousness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: parlourmaid (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: “parlourmaid.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/parlourmaid. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.