A milkmaid, milk maid, milkwoman, dairymaid, or dairywoman is a girl or woman who works with milk or cows.[1]
She milks cows and also uses the milk to prepare dairy products such as cream, butter, and cheese. Many large houses employ milkmaids instead of having other staff do the work. The term milkmaid is not the female equivalent of milkman in the sense of one who delivers milk to the consumer;[citation needed] it is the female equivalent of milkman in the sense of cowman or dairyman.[2]
In 1600s-1800s English "milkmaids" sold milk wearing a yoke holding two milk pails and vending vessels, and also decorated themselves for the London May Day procession.[3][4]
- ^ Galen, Jessica A. B. (2017). "Dairymaids". The Oxford Companion to Cheese (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199330881.013.0270 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISBN 978-0-19-933088-1. Retrieved 2022-12-23.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link) - ^ Hough, Carole (2001). "Middle English Deye in a Fifteenth-Century Cookery Book". Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 102 (3): 303–305. JSTOR 43344800.
The standard edition of the cookbook glosses deye as 'dairymaid', and indeed the term is otherwise recorded as a simplex in Middle English only with this meaning or the masculine equivalent 'dairyman'.
- ^ Hammerstrom, Kirsten (7 February 2013). "Blame the Milk Maid". Kitty Calash. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
- ^
- Judge, Roy (1979). The Jack in the Green, a May Day Custom. D S Brewer. ISBN 0-85991-029-6.
- Judge, Roy (2000). The Jack-in-the-Green: A May Day Custom (second ed.). London: The Folklore Society Books. ISBN 0-903515-20-2.