abigail

See also: Abigail and Abigaíl

English

Etymology

From the name Abigail, as given to a waiting-maid in Beaumont and Fletcher's play The Scornful Lady.

Pronunciation

Noun

abigail (plural abigails)

  1. (obsolete) A lady's maid. [mid 17th-19th c.][1]
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, page 415:
      It was therefore concluded that the Abigails should, by turns, relieve each other on one of his lordship’s horses, which was presently equipped with a side-saddle for that purpose.
    • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre:
      In the servants’ hall two coachmen and three gentlemen’s gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere.

Translations

References
  1. “abigail” in Lesley Brown, editor, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 5th edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 4.
  • abigail in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
  • abigail in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
  • “abigail” in Albert Barrère and Charles G[odfrey] Leland, compilers and editors, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, volume I (A–K), Edinburgh: The Ballantyne Press, 1889–1890, pages 4–5.
  • Farmer, John Stephen (1890) Slang and Its Analogues‎, volume 1, page 5–6
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