charlady

English

WOTD – 21 July 2011

Charlady.

Etymology

From char (“chore”) +‎ lady.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtʃɑːˌleɪ.di/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Noun

charlady (plural charladies)

1. (chiefly archaic or historical) A woman who cleans houses and offices as an occupation.
   • 1920, Herman Cyril McNeile, “In Which He Has a Near Shave”, in Bulld-dog Drummond:

     "Then we'll move." And Peter, watching the car resignedly from the window, saw the American grip his seat with both hands, and then raise them suddenly in silent prayer, while an elderly charlady fled with a scream to the safety of the area below.

   • 1949, Frank Swinnerton, “Charladies”, in Tokefield Papers, Old and New, page 163:

     MOST of the charladies to be met with in novels and plays are comic characters. […] This ridicule of a whole class does not mean that novelists and dramatists hate charladies, but only that the novelist and dramatist is never quite master of his own book or his own play.

   • 2005 December 8, Owen Gibson, “Past lives bring Paxman to tears”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     He is shown choking back tears as he discovers that his great, great, great grandmother was a charlady in Scotland who died in her thirties of tuberculosis and exhaustion.

Synonyms

• (woman who cleans): char, charwoman, Mrs Mop

Translations

woman who cleans houses and offices — see charwoman

Anagrams

• dyarchal