maid

thumb|Illustration by William Thomas Smedley, 1906 thumb|La Toilette by Raimundo Madrazo|Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, thumb|A maid cleaning in Denmark in 1912.

A maid, housemaid, or maidservant is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era, domestic service was the second-largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids are now typically only found in the wealthiest households. In other parts of the world (mainly within the continent of Asia), maids remain common in urban middle-class households.