charwoman
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See also: char-woman
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]charwoman (plural charwomen)
- (chiefly British) A woman employed to do housework, traditionally coming and going on a daily basis and paid weekly wages.
- 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter XXXVIII, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:
- The cloth was laid by an occasional charwoman, who officiated in the capacity of Mr. Bob Sawyer’s housekeeper; […]
- 1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter IX, in Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:
- Through a partly-opened door the noise of a scrubbing-brush led up to the charwoman, Maryann Money, a person who for a face had a circular disc, furrowed less by age than by long gazes of perplexity at distant objects.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.
- 1919, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Pictures”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 163:
- But there was nobody at Kig and Kadgit's except the charwoman wiping over the “lino” in the passage.
Synonyms
[edit]- char
- charlady
- Cinderella (disparaging)
- cleaning woman
Translations
[edit]cleaning lady
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