Also 6 waitresse. [f. WAITER + -ESS.]
† 1. A waiting-maid, handmaid. Obs. rare–1.
c. 1586. C’tess Pembroke, Ps. CXXIII. i. Unto thee … lift I my earthy seeing … As the look of waitresse fixed on a lady lieth.
2. A woman who waits upon the guests at a hotel, restaurant, etc. Also one hired for a similar purpose on special occasions to supplement the staff of a private household. (Cf. WAITER 8.)
1834. Drakard’s Stamford News, 4 Nov. A waitress who lived at Alconbury hill.
1836. Hood, Let., Mem. (1860), I. 234. I boarded at the chateau, and only slept and breakfasted at the inn. I had the prettiest girl in the place for my waitress.
1854. De Quincey, Autob. Sk., Coleridge, Wks. II. 188, note. Waiter:—Since this was first written, social changes in London … have introduced a corresponding new word—viz., waitress; which word, twenty-five years back, would have been simply ludicrous.
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., III. i. 27. A buxom waitress from the inn.
