maitre d'

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The Word of the Day for August 10 is:

maitre d' or maitre d' \may-truh-DEE\   noun
     : maitre d'hotel, headwaiter  

Example sentence: 
     The maitre d' ushered the couple to a private table at the back of the 
restaurant.

Did you know? 
     "Maitre d'" is short for "maitre d'hotel," which comes from French and 
literally means "master of the house." "Maitre d'hotel" was first used in 
English in the 16th century for a head butler or steward of a household, before 
it was adapted to refer to the head of a dining-room staff around the middle of 
the 19th century. (For the record, the plural of "maitre d'hotel" is "maitres 
d'hotel," whereas the plural of "maitre d'" is "maitre d's.") We began dropping 
the "hotel" of "maitre d'hotel" about 50 years ago. At first, the abbreviated 
form was considered slang, but today "maitre d'" is widely used in American 
English and is accepted as a standard American use. 





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