Meaning of servingwoman | Babel Free

Definitions

A female servant.

historical

Examples

“[…]; and Cascorro courting Eulalia, the servingwoman, who was the very image of domesticity as she sat sewing seed pearls on a pair of gray gloves.”

“Sisly Milk-pail, servingwoman to Frankford.”

“The servingwoman glanced at her in surprise, and she found herself blushing.”

“The windows in the hall had to be kept closed because of the stench from the street, and each morning she had the servingwomen burn spices to perfume the air. […] A servingwoman stooped near the bed, carefully collecting fragments of china between her fingertips and transferring them to a tray.”

“Sarah, aged 26 / servingwoman”

““This is beyond the beyond! To think that he can actually dismiss my own servingwomen! […]” […] He was handing a goblet of wine to the young servingwoman who was with him.”

“In the meanwhile we had a place with the other servingwomen, in the room behind the kitchen.”

“Kristín Ómarsdóttir’s collection focuses on an obscure, nearly forgotten servingwoman working in an old country inn.”

“He had resolved to stay awake until the servingwoman delivered her final report for the night about his daughter’s condition. […] The servingwomen must have gone for hot water.”

“Going to spend the evening at his house with him, I became curious about a girl who, living in a house next to his, came in to keep his old wife company. At the first hour of night¹⁵ a servingwoman would come to fetch her and she would leave.”

“The fraudulent servingwoman collected coins from the assemblage while several dark-clad men packed away the magician’s belongings.”

“She sat and one of her servingwomen unbraided and rebraided her hair while Antonia toyed with a gold Circle of Unity studded with gems. […] “Go on,” said Antonia, her eyes shut as the servingwoman drew the cloth away from her face.”

“Ostovich examines how Jonson uses The Magnetic Lady to play out a war between gender and class roles by demonizing an alliance of servingwomen who attempt to secure their own pleasure—defined as wealth and power—by taking over a widow’s household and nominating their own heiress to the family fortune. […] The writers of citizen comedy often assigned this category of servingwoman to a lower class so that she could be played as a comic figure: in Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday, Sibil, Rose Oateley’s maid, in return for “a cambric apron … and a pair of purple stockings,” promises to “go jiggy-joggy to London and be here in a trice” (I, ii, 54–5, 61–2).”

“Like young does caught in the beam of a hunter’s flashlight, two servingwomen in gray dresses froze and stared at Grace in round-mouthed surprise. […] On the floor was a small bundle of tattered cloth. The old servingwoman must have dropped it, like a miniature version of herself.”

““Did you hear what I said? Your father went to the servingwomen, in that row of storage huts against the stockade.” […] Caerdoc was gone; a servingwoman scrubbing the trestle board would tell her nothing.”

““Yes, ser.” With a smile, the servingwoman turned and headed to the kitchen.”

“Matthew says the second accusation of John came from a servingwoman, John from one of the male servants standing at the fire.”

“Master Gruesby would have asked if he might speak with Master Stephen alone but the tiredly impatient servingwoman gave him no chance, showed him up to Lady Agne’s solar without question, announced, “It’s the crowner’s man,” and withdrew, all in a bustle that frighted him off saying anything.”

“It was you I scorned in scorning her—I her son, ‘the son of your servingwoman, and myself your servant.’”

“In the meantime, the queen and a few trusted servingwomen set about devising disguises appropriate to the “de Korff family,” including a small girl’s dress for the five-year-old dauphin and the outfit of a financial agent for the king. […] The queen’s servingwoman—the very woman the royal couple had so feared in the weeks before the flight—had informed officials of the coming evasion with great accuracy.”

“Tiarnan eased back and motioned to one of the servingwomen hovering at each end of the table. […] He could picture the anxious faces in his father’s hall. The servingwoman who’d been shaking in her shoes as she’d come close to Saraid.”

“Sending a servingwoman to fetch seawater to bathe the corpse, Hecuba reenters the central tent, leaving the stage empty, as if at the end of a play. […] The servingwoman returns, a corpse is carried onstage, and Hecuba reemerges to learn the worst.”

“Please ring that bell, there beside you, to the servingwomen’s quarters. […] But there were tenants living in the house—a captain well known in town, his sister, and with them an elderly servingwoman, and these tenants, the captain, his sister, and the servingwoman, had all three been stabbed to death that night and apparently robbed.”

“A Genovese notary who occasionally came to call was astonished at how rarely she appeared, although her tactful servingwoman explained: Every day she takes care of her very ill sister and of her other sister who is a little less ill.”

CEFR level