steward

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A ship's officer who is in charge of making dining arrangements and provisions.

   There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. Mail bags, so I understand, are being put on board. Stewards, carrying cabin trunks, swarm in the corridors. Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place.

2. 2
   noun

   A flight attendant, especially male.

   The gay Kibbutzniks I met were all ex-Kibbutzniks who were curretly holding jobs as El-Al stewards or in some similarly classic gay professions.

3. 3
   noun

   A fiscal agent of certain bodies.

   A steward in a Methodist church.

4. 4
   noun

   A magistrate appointed by the crown to exercise jurisdiction over royal lands.

   These lands must have been retained by some earlier Steward, perhaps Walter II (1204-41), when most of Erskine had been made into a fief for Henry, first known ancestor of the Erskine family.

From Middle English steward, stiward, from Old English stiġweard (“steward, housekeeper, one who has the superintendence of household affairs, guardian”), from stiġ (“a wooden enclosure; house, hall”) + weard (“ward, guard, guardian, keeper”), equivalent to sty + ward. Compare Icelandic stívarður (“steward”). More at sty, ward.

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