Library / English Dictionary

HOUSEKEEPER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A servant who is employed to perform domestic task in a household

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("housekeeper" is a kind of...):

domestic; domestic help; house servant (a servant who is paid to perform menial tasks around the household)

Derivation:

housekeep (maintain a household; take care of all business related to a household)

Credits

 Context examples: 

"But if you write a note to the housekeeper, Mr. Brandon," said Marianne, eagerly, "will it not be sufficient?"

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I took and furnished that house in Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the police; and engaged as a housekeeper a creature whom I knew well to be silent and unscrupulous.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I got her luggage, which included a typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sitting-room and bedroom prepared at once for Mrs. Harker.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, I approached that island in my fancy from every possible direction; I explored every acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they call the Spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing prospects.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

And there, as they slowly paced the gradual ascent, heedless of every group around them, seeing neither sauntering politicians, bustling housekeepers, flirting girls, nor nursery-maids and children, they could indulge in those retrospections and acknowledgements, and especially in those explanations of what had directly preceded the present moment, which were so poignant and so ceaseless in interest.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

He remarked that we must not disturb the housekeeper.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It goes to the housekeeper’s room.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But she was not at all sorry that she had abused the housekeeper the other day.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I have been a liberal housekeeper enough, but I shall not be ashamed to practise economy now.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)