chamberer

English

Etymology

From Middle English chamberer, from Old French chamberiere, feminine of chamberier; ultimately from Latin cambra (“room”). By surface analysis, chamber +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃeɪmbɚɚ/

Noun

chamberer (plural chamberers)

1. (obsolete) A servant who attends in a chamber; a chambermaid.
   • 2015, Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Her Circle, page 200:

     Mary Shelton, who entered as a chamberer in 1567 when she was about 17 years old, was the queen's second cousin on the Boleyn side.

   • 2017, Gareth Russell, Young and Damned and Fair, page 79:

     Servants sped up and down stairs to this gallery, bringing up plates of food from the Queen's privy kitchen, which then had to be handed over to the maids of honor, pages, or chamberers, […]

   • 2020, Jacobus De Voragine, Wyatt North, The Golden Legend:

     And then she said to her chamberer: It behoveth us no longer to abide here; and she said: Lady, whither will ye go?

2. (obsolete) A gallant; a carpetmonger.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:libertine

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

     I […] haue not those soft parts of Conuersation That Chamberers haue

   • 1840, George Darley, “Introduction”, in The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher:

     […] as a soldier, as a legislator, she adores him most; not as a chamberer, and a carpet-knight.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “chamberer”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• rechamber

Middle English

Alternative forms

• chamberere

Etymology

See chamberer.

Noun

chamberer (plural chamberers)

1. Chambermaid, handmaiden.
   • 1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “The Prologe of the Tale of the Wẏf of Bathe”, in The Tales of Caunt́bury (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: National Library of Wales, published c. 1400–1410], →OCLC, folio 61, verso:

     And but thow make a feeste on thilke day / That I was born and make me fressh and gay / And but thow do to my norice honour / And to my chambrere with inne my bour / And to my fadres folk and his allyes

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. Prostitute.