Definition of "barmaiden"

And here in this snug little Inn, I exclaimed, / With a barmaiden knowing, and pretty, and sly; / Who to love and confess it would not be ashamed, / How blest could I live, how reluctantly die.

1823 May 16, “Tour to the Western States”, in New-England Galaxy, volume VI, number 292, front page, column 2

Anything less like the flashy-dressed bar-maidens of the western gin palaces it would be difficult to imagine.

1860, Anthony Trollope, “A Day with One of the Navvies.—Afternoon.”, in The Three Clerks. A Novel., New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], page 188

There being no appearance of wind, we passed the night at Port Chalmers—that semi-amphibious town, whose inhabitants seem to consist chiefly of sailors, shipchandlers, boatmen, barmen, and barmaidens, and an eccentric barber, who has, quite naturally, transferred his services from Greenwich to Port Chalmers.

1866 August 1, “A Cruise to the Chatham Islands”, in Otago Daily Times, number 1433, Dunedin, page 5, column 1

It is all clean forgotten: machinery in motion, fine arts galleries, foreign commissioners and their squabbles, the Russian village, the Prussian gun, Spiers and Pond’s blonde bar-maidens, the Chinese theatre, the Imperial kiosque, and the American cream-soda saloon.

1870 August 22, “Paris Under Arms”, in The Daily Telegraph, number 4,738, London, page 5, column 3

“Excellent!” I answered, “finest in the world; take half a page?” “Well, I don’t mind if I do,” he said, and he handed his glass to the nearest barmaiden.

, Henry Wraxall, Bracebridge Hemyng, “‘Kempson’s Warning.’”, in The Nobleman on the Turf; or, In Bad Hands, London: Charles H[enry] Clarke, […], page 47

Under the heading of “Betsy at the Bar.—A Story of ‘Shouting’ at Charleston,” the Nelson Colonist says:—And the barmaiden whispered ’twere better by far, to make flats pay for champagne who bet at the bar.

1871 June 23, The Hawke’s Bay Times, volume 17, number 1,050, page 2, column 2

Go to dinner in Refreshment Room. Brilliant Barmaiden standing out against a background of brilliant and variegated bottles, like what a fancy chemist’s shop might be.

1871 July 22, [Francis Cowley Burnand], “My Health”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, page 27, column 1

Country visitors to the Agricultural-hall seem chronically hungry, while the town visitors are distinguished, on the contrary, by their addiction to the fluids dispensed by the wondrous barmaidens of Messrs. Spiers and Pond.

1871 December 6, “The Cattle Show”, in The Daily News, number 7,989, London, page 5, column 4

I don’t think that barmen and barmaidens are in the habit of intermarrying.

1872 February 7, “On Barmaids”, in C[harles] H[enry] Ross, editor, Judy, or The London Serio-Comic Journal, volume X, London: […] the Proprietor […], page 142, column 1

As Jews are forbidden to marry with Christians, Mr. Goodman had no business to look with desiring eyes upon the fair bar-maiden at the Steam Clock any more than Brian de Bois Guilbert had to look favourably upon the daughter of Isaac of York.

1873 January 14, Birmingham Daily Mail, volume V, number 729, page 2, column 2

Manfully he bore the punishment until a few days ago, when he received a telegram from the barmaiden to this effect—“Come down, darling, I’m dying to see you.”

1874 October 31, The Daily Southern Cross‎, volume XXX, number 5,364, Auckland

A song or a tale in your own C. T. room, / Is pleasant to hear now and then; / But avoid the bar where local men meet, / And ever the barmaiden’s “den!”

1875, Thomas Bardel Brindley, “Do You Want to Get On?”, in Hints, Humorous and Satirical, to All the World and His Wife, 3rd edition, London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. […], page 30

His eye does not close rapidly in the direction of a dyed barmaiden, nor does he smirk in Grafton-street between the hours of three and six o’clock.

1875, Young Ireland: An Irish Magazine of Entertainment and Instruction, page 77, column 2

[…] in taking leave of the forlorn barmaiden, he extended her his hand in token of the sympathy he felt.

1878, Bernard Barker, ““Oh, Doth Not a Meeting Like This Make Amends!””, in Eliot the Younger. A Fiction in Freehand., volume I, London: Samuel Tinsley & Co., […], pages 209–210

It will prove difficult in practice to determine whether a girl is or is not “showily-dressed,” and doubtless many barmaidens will appear even more fascinating to youths of the opposite sex when dressed in a manner the reverse of showy.

1883 April 22, “Discouraging Danish Barmaids”, in The Daily Examiner, volume XXXVI, number 112, San Francisco, Calif., page 2, column 9

It is not difficult for the wealthy brewer or pluralist publican, while he takes his ease in his comfortable dwelling on the Lord’s Day, or rolls in his chariot to the house of prayer, to denounce the agitation in favour of Sunday-closing, while his weary barmen and barmaidens “work from early morn to midnight” to carpet his ample halls and stable his well-fed horses.

1883 September 25, R. H. Lundie, “Licensed Victuallers and Sunday-Closing”, in Liverpool Daily Post, number 8807, published 26 September 1883, page 5, column 7

Lifting my hat, for etiquette, / And mopping from my brow the swuette, / The smiling barmaiden I muette.

1884 May 30, Currente Calamo: A Phonetic Phantasy, The Bicycling World, page 63, column 2

Beware of the famous Prestonpans ale, which is so temptingly advertised by freckled and bonnie barmaidens of Perth.

1887 October, Noel Ruthven, “A Dash Through the Land o’ Cakes”, in Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, volume XXIV, number 4, page 415, column 1

The faces of the barmaidens had risen in color, each having a pink flush on her cheek; […]

1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, chapter VIII, in Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, part III (At Melchester), page 215

The essence of the Circumlocution Office is thin and weak, compared to the scorn of the Railway barmaiden, “the eighth wonder of monarchical creation.”

1898, Andrew Lang, “Introduction”, in Christmas Stories from “Household Words” and “All the Year Round” by Charles Dickens; […] (Gadshill Edition. The Works of Charles Dickens in Thirty-two Volumes. […]; volume XXXI), volume I, London: Chapman & Hall, Ld.; New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page xi

I think I’ll trundle around to a pubs and meet another nice barmaiden. When you come right down to it, barmaidens are the oney soulful individuals in the whole English Isle. They unnerstand life.

1945, Harry Brown, Artie Greengroin, Pfc., New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, page 187

Shirley, Max’s daughter, oldest of the three barmaidens serving in the tavern, strutted purposefully past her two sisters to the ruckus in the rear.

1994, Roy V. Young, Captains Outrageous: or, For Doom the Bell Tolls, TSR, page 10

Perdziola sets the scene with the arrival of an opera company in elegant “street clothes” of jackets, breeches and cloaks contrasted by Zerbinetta’s comic troupe and her saucy barmaiden appeal.

1998 November 15, Abigail Foerstner, “A little breathing room: The challenge of designing costumes for opera”, in Chicago Tribune, 152nd year, number 319, section 7, page 12, column 4

ESSENTIAL GAMING EQUIPMENT […] 4. Mood video (a DVD of “Lusty Busty Barmaidens of Yore #9” is my personal favorite).

2005, Evan Dorkin, Bill Morrison, Comic Book Guy’s Book of Pop Culture (The Simpsons Library of Wisdom)‎, HarperCollinsEntertainment

In the early evening, the bar fills with regulars trading anecdotes with tattooed, comely, competence-oozing barmaidens.

2008 July 30 – August 5, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, volume 42, number 44, page 34

“I said, ‘Hello, I’m Miss Kay and I’m a Christian barmaiden, and everybody in here doesn’t need to be drinking,’” she [Kay Robertson] said to laughter from the crowd.

2014 October 1, Katherine Burgess, “‘Everything is from our faith,’ says ‘Miss Kay’”, in The Jackson Sun, Jackson, Tenn., section “Neighbors”, page 3, column 2