Aya

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A domestic servant or nursemaid employed in India or Southeast Asia to care for children or manage household tasks
2. A female attendant or caregiver, typically hired in South Asian or Southeast Asian households to look after children or assist with domestic work
3. An Indian or Southeast Asian nursemaid or maidservant who tends to children and performs various household duties

Etymology: "Aya" is a name with two unrelated origins. As a Japanese given name, it is borrowed from Japanese あや, a name whose meaning depends on the characters chosen for it, such as those meaning "colour" or "pattern" and "wonder" or "shine". The name has become familiar in English-speaking countries as a first name, though the English usage is recent and simply imports the Japanese name. In astronomy, the word is a different matter. The planetoid 2002 AW197 was given the name Aya after the Akkadian goddess, whose name begins with the same letter as its provisional designation, a convention astronomers use when naming minor planets. The name was chosen from the goddess of the ancient Mesopotamian peoples, not from Japanese, so the same spelling refers to two unrelated things in English.

Synonyms: nanny, nursemaid