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• n  a working woman who takes in washing

• A transplanted washerwoman wears ''a Paris cremation," a doubtful diplomat describes a rare piece of carpet as "hard to beat.
• Named for the hedgehog washerwoman of Beatrix Potter nursery-tale fame, the hospital is equipped to deal with every affliction, from broken bones to deflated spines.
• Discovered in 1859, its glory holes enriched Sandy Bowers, an illiterate Missouri teamster, made his washerwoman bride, Eilly Orrum.

• washwoman
• laundrywoman
• laundress

News & Articles

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• Tent-seekers must apply for arts festival
  STATE COLLEGE - A typed sign glared down on Archie Smith Thursday as he drew a bow across a shiny wooden instrument, playing "The Irish Washerwoman" for a knot of onlookers.
  July 13, 2013 - Altoona Mirror

Quotes

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• Regina Taylor in Chicago Sun-Times
  Child of slaves,Taylor begins, "orphaned at 7, married at 15, a widow and mother at 17 . . . she was a washerwoman, making $1.50 or $2 a week and yet she had these hopes, these dreams."
• Norbert Wiener in National Review Online
  Norbert Wiener described her somewhat more generously as "an energetic and very nearsighted washerwoman whose many students flocked around her like a clutch of ducklings around a kind, motherly hen."