Amah
//ˈɑː.mə// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A woman employed to look after children; (formerly) a wet nurse. India
- 2 a female domestic wordnet
- 3 A female domestic helper; a maid. Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore
"Then one day he disappeared and when Luke called apprehensively at his apartment the old amah told him that ‘Whisky Papa runrun London fastee.’"
- 4 a woman hired to suckle a child of someone else wordnet
Example
More examples"Then one day he disappeared and when Luke called apprehensively at his apartment the old amah told him that ‘Whisky Papa runrun London fastee.’"
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.
Related phrases
More for "amah"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.