bower-maidbower-maidenn.
archaic.
A chamber-maid; a lady in waiting.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > subjection > service > servant > personal or domestic servant > attendant or personal servant > [noun] > servant of bedchamber > woman
bower-maidc1308
bower-womanc1380
chamberlaina1400
bower-may1870
c1308 Sat. People Kildare ix, in Early Eng. Poems & Lives Saints (1862) 175 Goddes bourmaidnes and his owen spouse.
c1330 Arth. & Merl. 6486 A burmaiden he hadde fair and schene.
c1440 Promptorium Parvulorum 56 Burmayden, pedissequa, ancilla.
c1450 in T. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 623 Abra, bowre-mayde.
1884 Ld. Tennyson Becket iii. i. 121 Only my best bower-maiden died of late.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1887; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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n.c1308