variants also handmaid
Definition of handmaidennext

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of handmaiden Brush in hand, she is dwarfed by huge canvases within the paintings on which bare-breasted figures are in the process of emerging—a waiflike handmaiden hard at work at the feet of her American Helens of Troy. — Naomi Fry, New Yorker, 23 May 2026 The common foe of all is expansionist Iran and its handmaidens Hamas and Hezbollah. — Josef Joffe, The Atlantic, 14 Feb. 2026 That’s for the courts to say, not Trump’s handmaidens in cruelty. — Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 18 July 2025 And what the project means by the term—turning the Department of Energy into a handmaiden of the coal, oil and natural gas industry—betrays not only the taxpayer but science itself. — Megha Satyanarayana, Scientific American, 25 Apr. 2025 See All Example Sentences for handmaiden
Recent Examples of Synonyms for handmaiden
Noun
  • When his son suddenly turns up alive and well, Mark and his psychiatrist wife, Abigail (Kerry Washington), realize that the kidnapper accidentally took the child of Ramón (Luis Gerardo Méndez), their housekeeper’s undocumented day-laborer boyfriend.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 8 Oct. 2026
  • Everyone from the front-desk employees to the housekeepers to the yoga instructors were helpful and attentive.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 6 Oct. 2026
Noun
  • Adelaide said, with a vehemence that frightened Masha, the maid trying to spoon medicine into her clenched mouth.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 13 Oct. 2026
  • This is the kind of show where an opulent tea party is dramatized not just by many different plates of fancy pastries, fancy wreaths and lots of furniture, but by having all that stuff carted in by a dozen or so butlers, maids and other servants.
    — Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 1 Oct. 2026

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Handmaiden.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/handmaiden. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster