housekeeper
UK /ˈhaʊskiːpə/ · US /ˈhaʊskipɚ/ noun
Forms housekeepers house keeper house-keeper
- noun 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.”
- noun Someone who manages the running of a home, traditionally the female head of the household.
- noun (colloquial, now rare) Someone who keeps to their house; someone who rarely ventures away from home; an unadventurous person, a homebody.
- noun (now rare) Someone who owns a house as a place of residence; a householder.
Etymology
From house + keeper.
Webster’s 1913
- noun One who occupies a house with his family; a householder; the master or mistress of a family. Locke.
- noun One who does, or oversees, the work of keeping house; as, his wife is a good housekeeper; often, a woman hired to superintend the servants of a household and manage the ordinary domestic affairs.
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “housekeeper”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details