What's the difference between handmaid and maidservant?

Handmaid


Definition:

  • (n.) Alt. of Handmaiden

Example Sentences:

  • (1) What goes on in The Handmaid’s Tale [the overthrow of the US government by a theocratic dictatorship that suppresses the rights of women] is actually confined to what used to be the United States.
  • (2) To those of us who work to protect women’s freedoms this case feels like the early days of The Handmaid’s Tale: the temperature in the bathtub is rising swiftly and silently.
  • (3) I was perhaps too optimistic to end the Handmaid's story with an outright failure.
  • (4) To quote The Handmaid’s Tale : “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
  • (5) Morally provocative and darkly funny with plenty of sex (including some fashionable sadomasochism), the series will be lapped up by fans of The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake .
  • (6) The Handmaid’s Tale neatly set my world on its head.
  • (7) The Handmaid's Tale has often been called a "feminist dystopia", but that term is not strictly accurate.
  • (8) Sarah: I read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale at 19, struggling through my second year at a conservative Baptist college.
  • (9) Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale seems to have moved from fiction to prophecy, with news of a court case in England that could lead to the prosecution of women who drink alcohol while pregnant.
  • (10) The Handmaids themselves are a pariah caste within the pyramid: treasured for what they may be able to provide – their fertility – but untouchables otherwise.
  • (11) The Handmaid's Tale is reissued this month by the Folio Society
  • (12) No, this is not The Handmaid’s Tale , we are told, in a “ calm down, dear ” sort of way, and we should merely accept the DUP’s mix of creationism, misogyny and homophobia as a quirk of coalition.
  • (13) People – not only women – have sent me photographs of their bodies with phrases from The Handmaid's Tale tattooed on them, " Nolite te bastardes carborundorum " and "Are there any questions?"
  • (14) When asked whether The Handmaid's Tale is about to "come true", I remind myself that there are two futures in the book, and that if the first one comes true, the second one may do so also.
  • (15) The Handmaid's Tale has not been out of print since it was first published, back in 1985.
  • (16) On 10 June there is a cryptic entry: "Finished editing Handmaid's Tale last week."
  • (17) Stories about the future always have a "what-if" premise, and The Handmaid's Tale has several.
  • (18) In fact, in The Handmaid’s Tale , England is the country of choice where escaped women want to go.
  • (19) It has become a sort of tag for those writing about shifts towards policies aimed at controlling women, and especially women's bodies and reproductive functions: "Like something out of The Handmaid's Tale " and "Here comes The Handmaid's Tale " have become familiar phrases.
  • (20) Photograph: PR Ma’ Rosa (Brillante Mendoza, Philippines) Bacalaureat (Cristian Mungiu, Romania) Loving (Jeff Nichols, US) The Handmaid (Park Chan-wook, South Korea) The Last Face (Sean Penn, US) Sieranevada (Cristi Puiu, Romania) Elle (Paul Verhoeven, France) The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn, US) Out of competition Facebook Twitter Pinterest Steven Spielberg’s The BFG.

Maidservant


Definition:

  • (n.) A female servant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) What made Dreyer's childhood emotionally arid by most accounts was lack of familial affection, partly motivated by his real mother, Josefina Nilsson, a Swedish maidservant, having failed to leave the Dreyers any money for child support.
  • (2) Compare that to how Indian maidservants – the aayahs and the bhaiyas – live.
  • (3) She remembers being, at the age of around 12, evacuated to the Cotswolds, where the 16-year-old maidservant at the vicarage got pregnant and drowned herself in the village pond (something similar happens in A Dark-Adapted Eye ).
  • (4) The living people revealed the painted people behind them like actors in the same performance, and flashing up before me was a little princess, her young maidservants and the artist himself, all gathered in a pool of sunlight below a heavy volume of shadow that instantly sets the tenor of the scene.

Words possibly related to "handmaid"

Words possibly related to "maidservant"