Valet
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A valet or varlet is a male
Word origins
In English, valet as "personal man-servant" is recorded since 1567, though use of the term in the French-speaking English medieval court is older, and the variant form varlet is cited from 1456 (
The modern use is usually short for the valet de chambre (French for "room valet", in modern terms the bedroom, though not originally so), described in the following section.
Since the 16th century, the word has traditionally been pronounced as rhyming with pallet, though an alternative pronunciation, rhyming with array and allay, as in French, is now common, particularly in the United States.[1] The Oxford English Dictionary lists both pronunciations.
Domestic valet
A valet or "gentleman's gentleman" is a gentleman's male servant; the closest female equivalent is a lady's maid. The valet performs personal services such as maintaining his employer's clothes, running his bath and perhaps (especially in the past) shaving his employer.
In a great house, the master of the house had his own valet, and in the very grandest great houses, other adult members of the employing family (e.g. master's sons) would also have their own valets.
At a court, even minor princes and high officials may be assigned one, but in a smaller household the butler – the majordomo in charge of the household staff – might have to double as his employer's valet. In a bachelor's household the valet might perform light housekeeping duties as well.
Valets learned the skills for their role in various ways. Some began as
Traditionally, a valet did much more than merely lay out clothes and take care of personal items. He was also responsible for making travel arrangements, dealing with any bills and handling all money matters concerning his master or his master's household.
Valets, like butlers and most specialized domestic staff, have become relatively rare. A more common, though still infrequent, arrangement is the general servant performing combined roles.
A notable 20th century domestic valet was
Another notable person is Walt Nauta, a former military valet, who worked at the White House and later at Mar-a-Lago as Donald Trump's personal valet. On July 6, 2023, he pleaded not guilty for allegedly moving boxes of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago.[3][4]
Famous fictional valets
- Figaro, the Count of Almaviva's valet from Rossinioperas based on it
- Leporello, valet of Don Giovanni in the 1787 opera by Mozart
- Sam Weller, valet to Samuel Pickwick in The Pickwick Papers (1836) by Charles Dickens
- D'Artagnan of The Three Musketeers(1844)
- Baptistin, in The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) by Alexandre Dumas
- Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Jeeves, created in 1915 by P. G. Wodehouse, starred in a series of stories until Wodehouse's death in 1975
- Mervyn Bunter, created in 1923 by Dorothy L. Sayers in the Lord Peter Wimsey series
- George (or Georges), created by Agatha Christie in 1926, in the Hercule Poirot novels
- Edward Henry Masterman, the victim's valet and a suspect in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
- The Green Hornet, created in 1936
- Pork, Gerald O'Hara's valet in the 1936 novel Gone With the Wind
- Rochester van Jones (Eddie Anderson), the valet of Jack Bennyon Benny's radio and television shows, introduced in 1937
- Sisk, created in Harry Segall's 1938 play, Heaven Can Wait, which was adapted into a 1941 film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and other films
- Alfred Pennyworth, valet to Bruce Wayne (Batman), created by Don Cameron and Bob Kane in 1943
- The character "Valet" from No Exit (1944) by Jean-Paul Sartre
- Hugo Barrett, in the 1948 Robin Maugham novella, 1958 play and 1963 Joseph Losey film The Servant
- Kato, Pink Panther movies, introduced in A Shot in the Dark(1964)
- Giles French (Sebastian Cabot) in the sitcom Family Affair (1966–1971)
- Hobson (Sir John Gielgud), from the 1981 comedy film Arthur
- "Spicer" Lovejoy (David Warner), millionaire Caledon Hockley's (Billy Zane) English valet in the 1997 film Titanic
- Probert (Derek Jacobi), in the 2001 film Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman
- John Bates (Brendan Coyle), in the Julian Fellowes period drama Downton Abbey (2010–2015)[citation needed]
Other valets
Valet is also used for people performing specific services:
- hotel valet: an employee who performs personal services for guests.
- parking valet: a service employee who parks cars for guests, only from 1960.
- car valet: an employee who is paid to clean people's cars professionally.
- valet: a professional wrestlingterm for a person who accompanies a wrestler to the ring.
- jockey's valet: an employee who maintains a jockey's wardrobe and ensures the proper uniform is worn for each horse the jockey races.
Other forms of valet-like personnel include:
Clothes valet
Clothes valets are a piece of furniture also referred to as a men's valet. A majority are free standing and made out of wood.
Varlet
While in French this word remained restricted to the feudal use for a (knight's) squire, in modern English it came to be used for the various other male servants originally called va(r)let other than the gentleman's gentleman, when in livery usually called lackey, such as the valet de pied ('foot varlet', compare footman). In archaic English, varlet also could mean an unprincipled man; a rogue.
See also
References
Notes
- ^ "Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and hundreds more". Bartleby.com. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
- ^ "Who was Sydney Johnson? How Edward's valet really met Mohamed Al-Fayed". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
- ^ "Here's The Unsealed Indictment Over Donald Trump's Handling Of Classified Documents". HuffPost. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
- ^ "Trump valet Walt Nauta pleads not guilty in classified documents case". Associated Press. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
Sources
- EtymologyOnLine
- Nouveau Petit Larousse Illustré (in French, 1952)
External links
- The dictionary definition of valet at Wiktionary