MAID.—The English words ‘maid,’ ‘maiden’ represent three Greek words: κοράσιον ([Mat 9:24] f. Authorized Version ‘maid,’ Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘damsel’); ἡ παῖς ([Luk 8:51] Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘maiden’; [Luk 8:54] Authorized Version ‘maid,’ Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘maiden’); and παιδίσκη ([Mat 26:69], [Joh 18:17] Authorized Version ‘damsel,’ Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘maid’; [Mar 14:66]; [Mar 14:69], [Luk 22:56] Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘maid’; [Luk 12:45] Authorized Version ‘maidens,’ Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘maidservants’). The first two clearly signify ‘young girl,’ answering to the Aramaic talîtha (cf. [Mar 5:41] and [Luk 8:54]: for a discussion of the Aramaic form see art. Talitha cumi). Talîtha seems to have been frequently employed in the sense of ‘young woman.’ In the Targums it is used of Dinah, Miriam, and Esther. It and its Greek equivalents have almost that meaning as applied to the daughter of Jairus. κοράσιον seems to have lost its diminutive force in later Greek and to have been no longer employed as a familiar term, but to have been virtually equivalent to κόρη, παιδίσκη, the feminine of παιδίσκος, originally a diminutive of παῖς, meant in the first instance ‘girl’ and then ‘domestic female servant’ or ‘slave.’ It has the latter meaning in the Gospels. In some passages in the LXX Septuagint ([Exo 20:10], [Lev 25:44] etc.) it represents ’âmâh (cf. art. Handmaid). It seems to have been used especially of a doorkeeper (Gospels, [Act 12:13], Lysias cited by Wetstein). That it often referred to a slave, not a hired servant, is evident from the passages quoted by Wetstein from the grammarians, and seems to be implied in the contrast between παιδίσκης and ἐλευθέρας in [Gal 4:22].
Literature.—Wetstein on [Mat 26:69]; Levy, Chaldäisches Wörterbuch, i. 303b; Swete on [Mar 14:66],
W. Taylor Smith.
