Editing Valet (section)

== Word origins ==
In English, ''valet'' as "personal man-servant" is recorded since 1567, though use of the term in the French-speaking English medieval court is older, and the variant form ''varlet'' is cited from 1456 ([[OED]]). Both are French importations of ''valet'' or ''varlet'' (the "t" being silent in modern French), Old French variants of ''vaslet'' "man's servant", originally "squire, young man", assumed to be from Gallo-Romance [[Vulgar Latin]] *''vassellittus'' "young nobleman, squire, page", diminutive of [[Medieval Latin]] ''[[vassal]]lus'', from ''vassus'' "servant", possibly cognate to an [[Old Celtic]] root ''wasso-'' "young man, squire" (source of Welsh ''gwas'' "youth, servant", Breton {{Lang|br|goaz}} "servant, vassal, man", Irish {{Lang|ga|foss}} "servant"). See [[yeoman]], possibly derived from ''yonge man'', a related term.

The modern use is usually short for the ''{{Lang|fr|valet de chambre}}'' (French for "room valet", in modern terms the bedroom, though not originally so), described in the following section.

Since the 16th century, the word has traditionally been pronounced as rhyming with ''pallet'', though an alternative pronunciation, rhyming with ''array'' and ''allay'', as in French, is now common, particularly in the United States.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bartleby.com/64/C007/0185.html|title=Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and hundreds more|publisher=Bartleby.com|access-date=28 October 2014}}</ref> The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' lists both pronunciations.