"amah" meaning in English

See amah in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈɑː.mə/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation], /ˈɑː.mɑ/ [Singapore-English] Forms: amahs [plural]
Etymology: From Portuguese ama (“female nurse”), from Medieval Latin amma (“wet nurse, amma”), perhaps an alteration of Latin mamma, of imitative origin, or from Ancient Greek. Etymology templates: {{der|en|pt|ama||female nurse}} Portuguese ama (“female nurse”), {{der|en|ML.|amma||wet nurse, amma}} Medieval Latin amma (“wet nurse, amma”), {{der|en|la|mamma}} Latin mamma, {{der|en|grc|-}} Ancient Greek Head templates: {{en-noun}} amah (plural amahs)
  1. (India) A woman employed to look after children; (formerly) a wet nurse. Tags: India
    Sense id: en-amah-en-noun-Pp2jM7gv Categories (other): Indian English
  2. (Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia) A female domestic helper; a maid. Tags: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore
    Sense id: en-amah-en-noun-R7KUG6Sr Categories (other): Bruneian English, Indonesian English, Malaysian English, Singapore English, English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 30 70
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: ama Related terms: amma

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for amah meaning in English (2.6kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "pt",
        "3": "ama",
        "4": "",
        "5": "female nurse"
      },
      "expansion": "Portuguese ama (“female nurse”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ML.",
        "3": "amma",
        "4": "",
        "5": "wet nurse, amma"
      },
      "expansion": "Medieval Latin amma (“wet nurse, amma”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "la",
        "3": "mamma"
      },
      "expansion": "Latin mamma",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "grc",
        "3": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "Ancient Greek",
      "name": "der"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Portuguese ama (“female nurse”), from Medieval Latin amma (“wet nurse, amma”), perhaps an alteration of Latin mamma, of imitative origin, or from Ancient Greek.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "amahs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "amah (plural amahs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "amma"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Indian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A woman employed to look after children; (formerly) a wet nurse."
      ],
      "id": "en-amah-en-noun-Pp2jM7gv",
      "links": [
        [
          "wet nurse",
          "wet nurse"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(India) A woman employed to look after children; (formerly) a wet nurse."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "India"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Bruneian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Indonesian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Malaysian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Singapore English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "30 70",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 20",
          "text": "Then one day he disappeared and when Luke called apprehensively at his apartment the old amah told him that ‘Whisky Papa runrun London fastee.’",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A female domestic helper; a maid."
      ],
      "id": "en-amah-en-noun-R7KUG6Sr",
      "links": [
        [
          "female",
          "female"
        ],
        [
          "domestic",
          "domestic"
        ],
        [
          "helper",
          "helper"
        ],
        [
          "maid",
          "maid"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia) A female domestic helper; a maid."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Brunei",
        "Indonesia",
        "Malaysia",
        "Singapore"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈɑː.mə/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈɑː.mɑ/",
      "tags": [
        "Singapore-English"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "ama"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "amah"
  ],
  "word": "amah"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English 2-syllable words",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms derived from Ancient Greek",
    "English terms derived from Latin",
    "English terms derived from Medieval Latin",
    "English terms derived from Portuguese",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "pt",
        "3": "ama",
        "4": "",
        "5": "female nurse"
      },
      "expansion": "Portuguese ama (“female nurse”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ML.",
        "3": "amma",
        "4": "",
        "5": "wet nurse, amma"
      },
      "expansion": "Medieval Latin amma (“wet nurse, amma”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "la",
        "3": "mamma"
      },
      "expansion": "Latin mamma",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "grc",
        "3": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "Ancient Greek",
      "name": "der"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Portuguese ama (“female nurse”), from Medieval Latin amma (“wet nurse, amma”), perhaps an alteration of Latin mamma, of imitative origin, or from Ancient Greek.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "amahs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "amah (plural amahs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "amma"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Indian English"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A woman employed to look after children; (formerly) a wet nurse."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "wet nurse",
          "wet nurse"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(India) A woman employed to look after children; (formerly) a wet nurse."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "India"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "Bruneian English",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Indonesian English",
        "Malaysian English",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "Singapore English"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 20",
          "text": "Then one day he disappeared and when Luke called apprehensively at his apartment the old amah told him that ‘Whisky Papa runrun London fastee.’",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A female domestic helper; a maid."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "female",
          "female"
        ],
        [
          "domestic",
          "domestic"
        ],
        [
          "helper",
          "helper"
        ],
        [
          "maid",
          "maid"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia) A female domestic helper; a maid."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Brunei",
        "Indonesia",
        "Malaysia",
        "Singapore"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈɑː.mə/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈɑː.mɑ/",
      "tags": [
        "Singapore-English"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "ama"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "amah"
  ],
  "word": "amah"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.