Dictionary

charlady en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈtʃɑːˌleɪ.di/ (UK)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From char (“chore”) + lady.

Meanings

1. (archaic, historical) A woman who cleans houses and offices as an occupation.
   • "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. 1920, Herman Cyril McNeile, “In Which He Has a Near Shave”, in Bulld-dog Drummond:
   • 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. 1949, Frank Swinnerton, “Charladies”, in Tokefield Papers, Old and New, page 163:
   • 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. 2005 December 8, Owen Gibson, “Past lives bring Paxman to tears”, in The Guardian:

Forms

Synonyms

charwoman (woman who cleans) · Mrs Mop (woman who cleans) · char (woman who cleans)