A female servant or maid who assists with domestic duties, particularly in Middle Eastern or South Asian households.
From Persian/Urdu 'hamam' (bath) combined with English '-aid' suffix, originally referring to female bath attendants in hammams before broadening to general domestic service.
This word shows how English borrowed servant titles from trade languages—'ayah' for nannies, 'mali' for gardeners, and 'hammaid' for maids—reflecting the colonial-era vocabulary of household staff across the Indian subcontinent.
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