Jeeves

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A manservant or personal attendant who performs household duties and assists his employer ; to work as a valet or provide personal service to someone
2. An indoor servant who manages domestic affairs and attends to an employer's requirements ; to function as a personal attendant fulfilling someone's needs
3. A male household servant responsible for personal and domestic service ; to act as a valet or serve in a subordinate attendant capacity

Etymology: Jeeves began as a surname, and it is a shortened pet form of a much grander name. In Middle English, "Jeeves" was a diminutive of Genevieve, the French-derived name that goes back to a Gallo-Roman woman venerated as the patron saint of Paris. Medieval English speakers gave familiar, affectionate forms of names like this, and one such form was passed down as a family name, which is how it came to belong to a person rather than a saint's day. Its best-known bearer is fictional. P. G. Wodehouse gave the surname to the impeccable valet Reginald Jeeves, whose calm competence rescues his bumbling employer Bertie Wooster, and the name became so associated with that character that many people now hear "jeeves" first as a generic word for a capable manservant. The surname's older, quieter history as a Genevieve diminutive is the part most readers never encounter.