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# housekeeper

«housekeeper» in Mova's school dictionary: **to look after a house: cleaning, cooking, shopping and…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (a housekeeper, housekeepers)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A person whose job is to look after a house: cleaning, cooking, shopping and running things for the family who live there. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#m1)

2) In a big old house, the head servant in charge of the other women servants and the household stores. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#m2)

3) A person who is good or bad at keeping their own home tidy and running: «She is a good housekeeper.» [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In stories set in old times (Victorian or Edwardian England) a big house has a housekeeper with keys at her belt who orders the maids about; in Alice the White Rabbit thinks Alice is his housemaid Mary Ann. In everyday life today a housekeeper may work in a hotel, cleaning rooms. Phrases: «a hotel housekeeper», «the housekeeper's room», «good housekeeping» (sensible care of a home or of money).

### examples

- The housekeeper kept the keys to every cupboard in the old house. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#x1)
- Mrs Hudson was Sherlock Holmes's housekeeper. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#x2)
- My aunt works as a housekeeper in a big hotel by the sea. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#x3)
- The housekeeper rang a bell to call the family to dinner. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#x4)
- Gran says she was never much of a housekeeper, but she was a great cook. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#x5)
- In the story, the housekeeper heard a strange noise in the attic. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#x6)
- The housekeeper checked that every room was clean before the guests came. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#x7)
- She must needs be both a good housekeeper and an experienced mother. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/#x8)

### note

Countable: one housekeeper, two housekeepers. A housekeeper is paid; a housewife or househusband looks after their own home without pay. Not the same as «housekeeping» (the work itself, also a word in computers for tidying files).

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «housekeeper» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/housekeeper/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.