Definition of "Bridget"

And when Miſtreſſe Briget loſt the handle of her Fan, I took't vpon mine honour thou hadſt it not.

c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii], page 45

Of all the beautiful Christian names of women which were in use a century or two ago Brighid (Breed), under the ugly form of Bridget, or still worse, Biddy, and Eiblin under the form of Eveleen, and perhaps Norah, seem to be the only survivals, and they are becoming rarer.

2000, David Pierce, Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century: A Reader, Cork University Press., pages 8–9

So long as any Bridget just landed (even before she has learned to walk comfortably in American shoes) can be sure of four dollars a week and her board and prequisites, it is the Bridgets who are really mistress of the situation.

1891, Ellen Battelle Dietrick, Good Housekeeping

My nurse, my Bridget, has gone back North. She said she wouldn’t stay another day down here among the ‘naygurs’ as she calls them.

1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, part IV, page 671

Beggar lads, emigrants, mowers, slaves, rustics, Malays, Bridgets, and porters peopled her work […]

2009, Aife Murray, Maid as Muse: How Servants Changed Emily Dickinson's Life and Language