caretaker

From care +‎ taker.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛɹˌteɪ.kɚ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛəˌteɪ.kə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

caretaker (plural caretakers)

1. Someone who takes care of a place or thing; someone looking after a place, or responsible for keeping it in good repair.

   Hyponyms: groundskeeper, groundsman, warden, sexton

   Her dad was a cemetery caretaker for many years. There was a lot of landscaping work. The gravedigging itself was done with backhoes.

   • 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 11:

     ‘Miss Brindle must be very rich to live in such a big house,’ went on Jessamy. ‘Miss Brindle rich?’ said Aunt Maggie. ‘Bless you, she hasn’t tuppence to rub together. She’s only the caretaker.’

2. (occasionally) A caregiver (person who provides care to another).

Using the word caretaker where the caregiver sense was meant is widely considered a catachresis (albeit mild); for example, AP style (of the Associated Press) advises to maintain this usage distinction. The force of its logic is inherently limited by the fact that the verb take care (of) can unobjectionably take a person as its direct object; but the prescription comes from the fact that caretaker and caretaking can seem to a native speaker to carry a connotation that the caree is being objectified.

caretaker (not comparable)

1. (chiefly UK) Temporary, on a short term basis.

   Synonym: interim

   Johnson had to be drafted in as the caretaker manager after Hewlett resigned without warning the day before the final.

   • 2023 November 15, Sam Jones, “Acting Spanish PM on verge of second term after controversial Catalan amnesty deal”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Sources within Sánchez’s caretaker administration claim the amnesty law is perfectly in keeping with the Socialist-led government’s efforts to calm tensions and find a political solution to the so-called Catalan question.