Definition of "charwoman" [char•wom•an]

• A woman hired to do cleaning or similar work, usually in a large building. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "WILLIS: A charwoman is a person who cleans a building, so she is responsible for cleaning up the building."
• "Normally, the chef would call a charwoman to clean up that sort of mess."
• "They had been lifted from a garbage can used by bureaucrats in some Soviet Russian Consulate, pilfered by what old British spy novelists used to call a "charwoman", in Yankee parlance, a janitor."