Q: I have been reading a science fiction book, Mission Earth, and the author, Mr. Hubbard, uses the terms “major-domo,” “chamberlain,” “seneschal”, as well as “butler” and they all seem to be the same thing. What niceties separate these terms? Is any one of them senior to the other?

A: Well, first of all, it is most surprising to see these terms-of-old applied in a work of science fiction. The answers are quite simple.

“Major domo” is the Spanish/Italian-culture equivalent of the “butler administrator,” supervising the running of the estate for an employer (who can include royalty and nobility). Major domo comes from Latin meaning “Chief in the house,” a term that arose about 500 years ago. Butler, I think we all know, comes from the Latin for “bottle,” referring to the chap who presented the wine to Romans a couple of thousand years ago.

“Seneschal” is the term for the same managerial position 700 years ago, and is no longer in use as a title. It comes from prehistoric German meaning “old” and “servant,” a reflection, possibly, on the loyalty of seneschals and/or the fact that only older servants made it to the giddy heights of seneschal.

“Chamberlain” refers to the same position, too, but only in the household of a monarch or nobility. Chamberlains predate seneschals by a couple of centuries. The word comes from ancient Greek for “vaulted room,” the underlying meaning being “bedchamber attendant.” The chamberlain’s title is “Lord Chamberlain” in royal households, and they remain the senior most members of a queen’s or king’s household.

As for which one of these gentlemen is senior to the other, none is, strictly speaking, as they are all masters of their own domain and cover the same basic functions, albeit on different scales. However, assuming some science fiction were to be applied, with a seneschal rising from his grave and being reincarnated a few hundred years later into our century, and assuming the Lord Chamberlain attended such an event, instead of his many junior staff, then the Lord Chamberlain would definitely be sitting at the head of the table for a formal employee meal, the seneschal to his right, and the major domo or butler to his left, and the American household manager below them—assuming also, that they had compared employers to see which actually outranked the other.

The dinner conversation would no doubt be most intriguing.

As a final note, perhaps we can find encouragement concerning the longevity and demand for our profession, when butlers et al are featured in science fiction stories.

Last month, we discussed other names for “butlers.” Of equal interest, perhaps, are the variations of the word “butler” itself. There are many more ways in which it can be used, and if these are brought back into use, it will help anchor the profession more firmly into society.

“Butle,” we know of as the verb, but so is the word “butler.” For instance, “Every great house should be butlered (served by a butler).” Or “Would you like to butler today?” meaning “take charge of and serve liquor.” A variant spelling is “buttle,” meaning “to pour a drink” or “do a butler’s work.”

The fairer sex within our ranks has been known as a “butleress” for the last four centuries (and for the record, the spelling of our title used to be “buteler” or “butelere”).

Like the word “stardom,” “butlerdom” means “of the estate or class of profession of butler.”

We even have a couple of adjectives for our profession: “Butlerian,” as in the sentence, “He worked with strict attention to his butlerian duties.”

And thanks to Aldous Huxley, we can consider using the word “butlerish” to mean “characteristic of a butler.” He wrote in 1923, “He moved with a certain pomp, a butlerish gravity.”

“Butler” can be used figuratively, meaning to bring something in the same way as the butler brings the welcome wine. As in the 15th Century example of “humor being someone’s butler,” always serving them with fun.

Along the same line is the phrase, “butler’s grace,” meaning “a drink.” Sample sentence: “Would you care for a butler’s grace?”

The butler used to be the high-ranking official in charge of the importation and supply of wine to the royal table. No big surprise there, but how about “butlerage?” That was the duty every importer of twenty tons or more of wine into England, had to pay the King’s butler. The duty amount? Two tons of wine!

And talking of perks on the job, the “butler’s box” was a box in which card players put a portion of their winnings at Christmas time, to give to the butler. For those who don’t know the custom because it is probably dying out even in England, Boxing Day is called that because the day after Christmas, vendors such as the milkmen and “sanitation engineers” (dustmen) with regular deliveries or pick-ups for households, visit each house with a box, into which homeowners put gratuities for the servicemen’s work over the prior year. So butlers, no doubt, worked out a way they could have their own box, and without having to traipse around the neighborhood to fill it up!

The “butlerage” actually had more than one meaning: it was once used to describe the office of the King’s butler, and thereafter grew to mean the office of any butler. The physical office in which he sat was called the “butlery.”

We refer loosely these days to the butler’s office as the “butler’s pantry,” but it was originally, and still is in many houses, the room where the plate, glass, etc. were kept.

And so we conclude past uses of the word “butler.” Maybe we can resurrect some, and certainly, language being a living beast, we can create new ones. The old ones have centered around the concept of wine and its serving. Maybe with the butler’s duties being so much more these days, we can create new definitions and have them accepted into the common language. If so, would be better coming from butlers doing good works, rather than infamous activities designed to grab the public spotlight (such as “Doing a butler,” which might mean “telling all to the media about the boss for great profit.”).

So, does anyone have any suggested new uses of the word “butler?”