The Bondmaid Slip in The Dictionary of Lost Words: Symbol of Lost and Redefined Language

What the Bondmaid Slip Is

The bondmaid slip is a dictionary top-slip—the small piece of paper on which a headword and its definition are recorded—bearing the word bondmaid and three definitions: a slave girl, a bonded servant, or someone bound to serve until death. It was written by Esme's father, Harry (Da), whose handwriting Esme later recognizes when she retrieves the slip from her hidden trunk. The slip first appears in May 1887, when a five-year-old Esme, hiding beneath the sorting table in the Scriptorium, catches it as it falls from above. Rather than returning it, she folds it into her pinafore pocket and shows it to Lizzie, the Murrays' young maid, who helps her hide it in a small wooden trunk beneath Lizzie's bed.

The slip is a top-slip, meaning it was meant to be paired with quotation slips—the evidence slips showing how the word was used in published sources. In September 1915, Lizzie discovers seven such quotation slips behind the pigeon-holes, held together with a rusty pin, each written in a different hand and quoting a different book. On three of them, Da had written possible definitions, with slave girl circled. The top-slip and its quotation slips were separated, and the word never made it into the A–B volume of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Where the Slip Recurs

The bondmaid slip appears at four key moments in the novel:

1. May 1887 (Chapter 2): Esme catches the slip under the sorting table, shows it to Lizzie, and hides it in the trunk. This is the first word she ever takes.

2. August 1901 (Chapter 10): Dr. Murray receives a subscriber's letter pointing out that bondmaid is missing from the published A–B volume. He searches furiously, and Esme retrieves the trunk from under Lizzie's bed, finding the bondmaid slip at the bottom—the first word she ever took, written in her father's hand.

3. September 1915 (Chapter 26): As the Scriptorium is being dismantled, Lizzie finds seven quotation slips for bondmaid behind the pigeon-holes. Esme recognizes Da's handwriting and the circled definition slave girl. She remembers the top-slip finding her years earlier.

4. 1989 (Epilogue, Chapter 28): Megan Brooks, Esme's daughter, removes a fragile, yellowed slip from an envelope at a lexicography convention in Adelaide and speaks the word bondmaid, explaining that it once belonged to her mother.

How the Slip's Meaning Changes

The bondmaid slip accumulates meaning across the novel, shifting from a child's secret treasure to a symbol of what the Dictionary excludes, and finally to a legacy of redefined language.

A secret treasure (1887). For the young Esme, the slip is almost magical. It found her, landing in her lap like a bright thing fallen from heaven. She cannot read the full definition, only the word itself, which she sounds out letter by letter. The slip is special because it came to her, and because she wants to keep it from the fire grate—a reference to the prologue, where she burned her hand rescuing a slip from the flames. Lizzie's trunk becomes the slip's home, and Esme begins collecting more words to keep it company.

A symbol of accidental exclusion (1901). When Dr. Murray discovers the word is missing, Esme feels a complicated mix of accomplishment and guilt. She has been the cause of something that seemed to really matter. But reading the definition aloud—a slave girl, or a bonded servant, or someone bound to serve till death—disturbs her. Lizzie's response deepens this: she recognizes herself in the word. That's what I am, she says. Esme declares the word horrible, but Lizzie counters that bondmaids will always exist whether or not the Dictionary includes them. The slip becomes a symbol of how the Dictionary's omissions reflect—and perpetuate—social hierarchies.

A word Lizzie redefines (1915). When the quotation slips resurface, Esme calls bondmaid vulgar, more offensive to her than cunt. But Lizzie offers a different reading: a word can change its meaning depending on who uses it. She reframes bondmaid as a term of devotion—she has been a bondmaid to Esme and has been glad for every day of it—transforming a word of servitude into one of chosen loyalty. This moment crystallizes the novel's central argument about the power of redefinition.

A legacy (1989). Megan Brooks calls the word beautiful and troubling and says it belonged to her mother. The slip has become an heirloom, a physical object that carries Esme's story of collecting lost words. Megan's address, titled The Dictionary of Lost Words, connects the slip to the novel's larger project of recovering what the Dictionary left out.

Character Connections

• Esme: The slip is her first act of preservation, the seed of her lifelong project of collecting words that the Dictionary excludes. Her relationship to the word evolves from curiosity to guilt to a determination to understand why some words matter more than others.

• Da (Harry): His handwriting on the slip connects him to the Dictionary's official work, but also to Esme's secret collection. He is the one who explains that words need written sources to be included, and who tells Esme that some words are just not solid enough.

• Lizzie: She keeps the trunk, identifies with the word's meaning, and ultimately redefines it. Her line about being a bondmaid to Esme transforms the word from an insult into an expression of love.

• Ditte (Edith): In her letter to Esme, Ditte explains that the Dictionary requires written sources for every word, and that most quotations come from books written by men. She validates Esme's instinct that the Scriptorium was a place to learn, and her correspondence helps Esme understand the systemic nature of the word's exclusion.

• Dr. Murray: His rage at the missing word reveals the Dictionary's authority and its vulnerability. The scene in which he searches the A–B volume and finds nothing is a turning point for Esme, who realizes she has affected the Dictionary's contents.

• Megan Brooks: As Esme's daughter, she inherits the slip and speaks it aloud in 1989, completing the arc from hidden treasure to public legacy.

Theme Connections

The bondmaid slip connects to several of the novel's central themes:

• The gendered exclusion of women's words: Bondmaid is a word about a female servant, and its absence from the Dictionary reflects how women's experiences were systematically left out of the record. Lizzie's identification with the word makes this exclusion personal.

• The authority of written versus oral language: Ditte's letter explains that words without written sources cannot be included. The bondmaid slip exists only because Da wrote it down; the word's meaning for Lizzie—her lived experience of service—has no textual authority.

• Language as a means of social control and resistance: The Dictionary's definitions of bondmaid encode a social hierarchy. Lizzie's redefinition of the word as devotion is an act of resistance, claiming the power to define one's own experience.

• The preservation of lost words as legacy: The slip's journey from Esme's pocket to Megan Brooks's hands in 1989 embodies the novel's project of preserving words that would otherwise be forgotten. The trunk, the Dictionary of Lost Words engraved inside it, and the slip itself all become part of this legacy.

Study Questions

1. Why does Esme keep the bondmaid slip instead of returning it?

Esme keeps the slip because it found her—it fell into her lap while she was hiding under the sorting table, and no one claimed it. She has already learned, from the prologue's fire-grate incident, that some words are discarded and that this matters. The slip is small and fragile, almost nothing but not quite, and she wants to keep it from being thrown away. Her decision to hide it in Lizzie's trunk marks the beginning of her collection of lost words.

2. How does Lizzie's response to the word bondmaid change its meaning?

Lizzie initially identifies with the word's definition—she recognizes herself as bound to serve the Murrays. But by 1915, she offers a different reading: a word can change its meaning depending on who uses it. She reframes bondmaid as a term of chosen devotion, saying she has been a bondmaid to Esme and has been glad for every day of it. This redefinition transforms the word from an insult into an expression of loyalty, illustrating the novel's argument that meaning is not fixed but created by those who use language.

3. What does the subscriber's letter reveal about the Dictionary's authority?

The subscriber's letter, which prompts Dr. Murray's search for bondmaid, reveals that the Dictionary is treated as an authoritative record—readers expect every word to be included and write to complain when one is missing. The letter also shows that the Dictionary's authority is fragile: it depends on the work of volunteers and editors, and it can be undermined by a single missing slip. Esme's realization that she caused the omission gives her a sense of power over the Dictionary's contents, even as she feels guilt.

4. How does the bondmaid slip function as a symbol of legacy in the epilogue?

In the 1989 epilogue, Megan Brooks removes the slip from an envelope and speaks the word bondmaid, calling it beautiful and troubling and saying it belonged to her mother. The slip has become a physical heirloom that carries Esme's story of collecting lost words. Megan's address, titled The Dictionary of Lost Words, connects the slip to the novel's larger project of recovering what the Dictionary excluded. The slip's journey from a child's secret to a public address symbolizes the preservation of lost words as a legacy passed from one generation to the next.