Meaning & use

maître d'

noun·Advanced

The head waiter or host of a restaurant, responsible for greeting guests and managing the dining room.

See it in a sentence

The maître d' led us to a quiet table by the window without any wait.

She asked the maître d' to arrange a special dessert for her husband's birthday.

A note on using this word

Short for French 'maître d'hôtel'; the common spelling 'maitre de' reflects how the shortened term sounds.

Words with a similar meaning

headwaiterhost

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

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