wardmaster

English

Etymology

From ward +‎ master, partly after Dutch wijkmeester.

Noun

wardmaster (plural wardmasters)

1. (now historical) An alderman or director of a city ward in the Netherlands or a Dutch colony. [from 19th c.]
   • 2020, Sujit Sivasundaram, Waves Across the South, William Collins, published 2021, page 310:

     Elections as wardmaster or commissioner on the council were open to all ethnicities but not to all classes, or to women.

2. The superintendent of a hospital ward. [from 19th c.]
   • 1872, Edward Everett Hale, Stand and Wait‎:

     Well, I have been talking with Lawrence Worster, my Surgeon-in-Charge, who is a very good fellow. His sick-list is not bad now, and he does not mean to have it bad; but he says that he is not pleased with the ways of his ward-masters; and it was his suggestion, not mine, mark you, that I should see if one or two of the Sanitary women would not come as far as this to make things decent.