wardmasters

Noun

wardmaster (plural wardmasters)

1. (historical) An alderman or director of a city ward in the Netherlands or a Dutch colony.
   • Elections as wardmaster or commissioner on the council were open to all ethnicities but not to all classes, or to women.2020, Sujit Sivasundaram, Waves Across the South, William Collins, published 2021, page 310
2. The superintendent of a hospital ward.
   • Well, I have been talking with Lawrence Worster, my Surgeon-in-Charge, who is a very good fellow. His sick-list is not bad now, and he does not mean to have it bad; but he says that he is not pleased with the ways of his ward-masters; and it was his suggestion, not mine, mark you, that I should see...1872, Edward Everett Hale, Stand and Wait