Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A man's male servant, who takes care of his clothes and performs other personal services.
  • noun An employee, as in a hotel or on a ship, who performs personal services for guests or passengers.
  • noun A person who parks and retrieves cars for patrons of restaurants, theaters, and other business establishments.
  • intransitive verb To act as a personal servant to; attend.
  • intransitive verb To work as a valet.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A man-servant who attends on a man's person. Also called valet de chambre.
  • noun In the manège, a kind of goad or stick armed with a point of iron.
  • To attend on as valet; act the valet to.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A male waiting servant; a servant who attends on a gentleman's person; a body servant.
  • noun (Man.) A kind of goad or stick with a point of iron.
  • noun a body servant, or personal attendant.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A man's personal male attendant, responsible for his clothes and appearance.
  • noun A hotel employee performing such duties for guests.
  • noun professional wrestling A female performer in professional wrestling, acting as either a manager or personal chaperone; often used to attract and titillate male members of the audience.
  • noun A female chaperone who accompanies a man, and is usually not married to him.
  • noun A person employed to clean or park cars.
  • noun A wooden stand on which to hold clothes and accessories in preparation for dressing.
  • verb transitive To clean and service (a car), as a valet does.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb serve as a personal attendant to
  • noun a manservant who acts as a personal attendant to his employer

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English valette, from Old French vaslet, valet, servant, squire, from Vulgar Latin *vassellitus, diminutive of *vassus, vassal; see vassal.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French; related to vassal.

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Examples

Comments

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  • must be pronounced unlike the French, with a fully realized 't' at the end (if you subscribe to Chapism, that is)

    June 22, 2009