Waitress

How to spell waitress

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce waitress

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does waitress mean?

1. nounA woman who serves food and drink to customers at a restaurant or cafe.

Waitress in a sentence

• The waitress brought our drinks before we had finished reading the menu.

• She worked as a waitress at a busy seafront cafe during the summer.

Where does waitress come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is a fairly modern English construction, formed by adding the feminine suffix -ess to the agent noun 'waiter', which itself comes from the verb 'to wait'. The verb 'wait' entered English from Old North French 'waitier', meaning 'to watch over' or 'to attend to', and that ultimately traces back to a Germanic root meaning 'to be watchful' (a relative of 'watch'). A 'waiter' originally meant simply someone who attends or watches over another, and only later narrowed to the person who serves food and drink at a table. The suffix -ess arrived through French from Latin -issa and Greek -issa, used to mark a female agent, the same ending seen in 'actress' and 'hostess'. 'Waitress' is recorded from around the 1830s, and the spelling trap is the doubled letters: a single t but a single s before the -ress that quietly doubles into 'tress'.

How the word is built

• wait (to attend or serve)
• -ress (feminine agent suffix, from -er
• -ess)