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English
Noun
Jill-of-all-trades and mistress of none (plural Jills-of-all-trades and mistresses of none)
- Alternative form of Jill of all trades, mistress of none.
1876, W E Wilcox, “Hash”, in Spa Sketches, &c., London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.; Scarborough: Theakston and Co., , page 93:And has your dismay decreased when, having made your moan, the excellent lady says cheerfully, that Sarah, the “general servant”—a Jill-of-all-trades and mistress of none—shall try her hand at a “hash?”
1883, R[ichard] E[rnest] N[owell] Twopeny, “Servants”, in Town Life in Australia, London: Elliot Stock, , page 50:Directly you come to incomes below a thousand a year, the number of servants is often reduced to a maid-of-all-work, more or less competent according to her wages, which run from seven to fifteen shillings a week. At the former price she knows absolutely nothing; at the latter something of everything. She cooks, washes, sweeps, dusts, makes the beds, clears the baths, and answers the door. All is grist that comes to her mill; and if she is Jill-of-all-trades and mistress of none, one must admit that an English-bred servant would not be one quarter so suitable to colonial requirements.
1987, Nursing Times, Nursing Mirror, page 5:The question has to be asked: are theatre nurses making the best use of their skills? Or are they being used to plug the gaps in the theatre service and so becoming Jills-of-all-trades and mistresses of none?
1998, “Childhood and Adolescence”, in Sara Heller Mendelson, Patricia [Marcia] Crawford, editors, Women in Early Modern England, 1550–1720, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, section “Service”, page 102:Many substantial yeoman or ‘middling’ households included two maidservants at most; artisans’ or husbandmen’s families could afford only a single one. Thus the typical female servant was the Jill-of-all-trades and mistress of none.
2004, Joan Kilby, chapter 11, in Family Matters, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 187:“The previous owner built the gate but I’m responsible for the nails. I’m a Jill-of-all-trades and mistress of none.”
2009, Susanne James, “The British Billionaire’s Innocent Bride”, in Undressed by the Billionaire, Mills & Boon, published 2013, →ISBN, page 38:‘And you’re…Bea?’ she asked shyly. ‘That’s right, dear—Jill-of-all-trades and mistress of none!’