maitre d'
13
8.0
- noun
- /ˌmɛtrə ˈdi/
:
maître
- When we arrived, the maitre d' welcomed us and asked for our reservation.
- maitre d' of the restaurant
- waiters and maitre d'
- maitre d' to seat
Examples
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You should have heard the maitre d' when I made the reservation.
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Whenever you say the words table for one to the maitre d', you're almost certainly guaranteed the most secluded table in the entire restaurant.
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- You are the best maitre d' in Europe.
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See the maitre d' over there, huh?
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Are you the maitre d'?
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I know the maitre d' there, and he'll give us a great table.
Fiction book (1992) -
- I'm the maitre d'.
-
We watch from a distance as Kate gets up and approaches the maitre d'.
Fiction book (1994) -
When the customers ask for the maitre d', you call him Eduardo.
-
The maitre d' whisked us to a side table set along a bricked wall.
Fiction book (2000)
Synonyms
6
5.3
A senior server who supervises other servers and seats guests
1
4.2
A person who leads the serving staff and seats customers in a restaurant
1
8.6
A head waiter who greets guests and looks after restaurant service
A person who manages waiters and seats people in a restaurant
How Senior
Surface Forms
Morphology
maitre + d'
This is a French loan phrase (short for maître d'hôtel) where 'maître' = 'master' and 'd'' = 'of', so a learner who knows the constituents can infer a person in charge. However, the specific restaurant sense 'head waiter' is conventional and not fully recoverable from the literal parts alone, and the phrase is truncated, making the precise occupational meaning dependent on lexicalized usage rather than pure composition.
Etymology
Maitre d' comes from French and is short for maître d'hôtel, which literally meant 'master of the house'. That person looked after guests and the staff, so today maitre d' means the person who greets guests and shows them to their table in a restaurant.