English edit

Noun edit

house-keeper (plural house-keepers)

  1. Archaic form of housekeeper.
    • 1769, Elizabeth Raffald, The Experienced English House-keeper:
      PERMIT me honoured Madam to lay before you, a Work, for which I am ambitious of obtaining your Ladyſhip’s Approbation, as much as to oblige a great Number of my Friends, who are well acquainted with the Practice I have had in the Art of Cookery, ever ſince I left your Ladyſhip’s Family, and have often ſollicited me to publiſh for the Inſtruction of their Houſe-keepers.
    • 1814, Edward Wedlake Brayley, John Britton, The Beauties of England and Wales, page 443:
      Before any person can become a Tackle Porter he must give bond with four sufficient house-keepers as sureties, for 500l. to make restitution for any loss or damage that may be sustained through his neglect or connivance.
    • 1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter IX, in Mansfield Park: [], volume II, London: [] T[homas] Egerton, [], →OCLC, page 203:
      [] left alone to bear the worrying of Mrs. Norris, who was cross because the house-keeper would have her own way with the supper, and whom she could not avoid though the house-keeper might, Fanny was worn down at last to think every thing an evil belonging to the ball, []
    • 1846, William Andrus Alcott, The Young House-keeper: Or, Thoughts on Food and Cookery, page 17:
      It is intended as a means of rendering house-keepers thinking beings, and not as they have hitherto often been, mere pieces of mechanism; or, what is little better, the mere creatures of habit or slaves of custom.
    • 1870, American Educational Monthly, page 332:
      Our model house-keeper minded closely her own business, never moving about or rootching around in what did not concern her.