What is the difference between maid and handmaid?
maid | handmaid |
(dated, or, poetic) A girl or an unmarried young woman; maiden.
A female servant or cleaner (short for maidservant).
* , title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 (archaic) A virgin of either gender.
* 1380+ , (Geoffrey Chaucer), (The Canterbury Tales)
* 1601 , (William Shakespeare), (Twelfth Night)
As nouns the difference between maid and handmaid
is that maid is a girl or an unmarried young woman; maiden while handmaid is a maid that waits at hand; a female servant or attendant.maid
English
Noun
(en noun)- Note - maid is often used in the common or species names of flowering plants.
citation, passage=She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid , […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.}}
- Crist was a mayde and shapen as a man.
- You are betrothed both to a maid and man.