A milkmaid, milk maid, milkwoman, dairymaid, or dairywoman is a girl or woman who works with milk or cows.[1]
She milks cows and also uses the milk to prepare dairy products such as cream, butter, and cheese. Many large houses employ milkmaids instead of having other staff do the work. The term milkmaid is not the female equivalent of milkman in the sense of one who delivers milk to the consumer;[citation needed] it is the female equivalent of milkman in the sense of cowman or dairyman.[2]
In 1600s-1800s English "milkmaids" sold milk wearing a yoke holding two milk pails and vending vessels, and also decorated themselves for the London May Day procession.[3][4]
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The standard edition of the cookbook glosses deye as 'dairymaid', and indeed the term is otherwise recorded as a simplex in Middle English only with this meaning or the masculine equivalent 'dairyman'.