Someone (traditionally a woman) employed to look after thehome, typically by managing domestic servants or superintending household management; also someone with equivalent duties in ahotel, institution etc.[from 16th c.]
She was their thirdhousekeeper, but after a month or so she also gave up.
Thehousekeeper, a very decorative brunette of thirty-five with a pseudo-English accent, greeted him with a mixture of grateful effusion and condescending patronage.
1987 December 13, Elizabeth Pincus, “Copping To The Mop Scandal”, inGay Community News, volume15, number22, page 1:
When management of the toney Copley Plaza Hotel orderedhousekeepers recently to put down their mops and hand wash the floors, a furor arose among the hotel cleaning staff. Local union representatives and others concerned with issues affecting women workers also rallied in anger to protest the directive, which in essence forcedhousekeepers to scrub on their hands and knees.
Someone who manages the running of ahome, traditionally the female head of the household.[from 17th c.]
(colloquial, now rare) Someone who keeps to their house; someone who rarely ventures away from home; anunadventurous person, ahomebody.[from 18th c.]
He was often heard to express his fears of coming upon the parish; and to bless God, that, on account of his having been so long ahousekeeper, he was intitled to that provision.
