I told a man on the links yesterday that I'd been a slavey for nine months. I was trying to explain why I was a suffragette […]1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… (Parade's End), Penguin, published 2012, page 81:
"Doing? Not a Dam' thing. I mean, I was sitting on the bed lighting a cigarette. We'd just come upstairs. Everything was all right; old Peabody in Sydney and the slavey given a night off to go to the pictures."1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 82:
1 more example
"The short-haired slavey who had opened the door now put in an appearance as waiter."1887, Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Mad-House, Norman L. Munro, published 1887, page 12:
Slavey
noun
/ˈsleɪvi/
Etymology From French Esclave, a calque of a Cree name, as the Cree called these people (and several other traditional enemies) slaves. In English, the final e came to be pronounced as if Slave were a native name; this pronunciation was first written Slavé and later Slavey. The names of the Slave River, Lesser Slave River, Great Slave Lake and Lesser Slave Lake do not necessarily derive from the people now known as Slavey in English.
1
A member of an Athabascan First Nations people indigenous to the region near the Great Slave Lake in western Canada
Derived terms
Great Slave Lake, Lesser Slave Lake, Lesser Slave River, Slave River