Jill of all trades and mistress of none
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: Jills of all trades and mistresses of none
Senses: examples: text: Every mistress of a household will understand my meaning when it is explained, that a young girl, having served in four or five different houses, will have done so in a different capacity in each. She will have been nursemaid, maid of all work, cook and housemaid, sewing maid, and consequently a Jill of all trades and mistress of none.
ref: 1875 January, [Marie von Bothmer], “German Home Life.—By a Lady.—I. Servants.”, in Fraser’s Magazine, volume XI, number LXI, page 41, column 2:
text: The German servant is, indeed, hopelessly uncouth, unhandy, and doggedly self-satisfied, Jill of all trades and mistress of none, and neat-handed Phillises are unknown in the scheme of Teuton creation.
ref: 1876 August 19, “German Home Life. (Longmans & Co.)”, in The Athenæum: Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama, number 2547, page 231, column 1:
text: WHAT is a sempstress? […] So far as we can make out, she is Jill of all trades and mistress of none. Dressmakers abuse her for taking work out of their hands, and upholsteresses say that she intrudes where she is not wanted. We shall class her here as the maker of underclothing; not only as an unskilled hand in her own home, but as a skilled machinist working for her daily bread in metropolitan factories.
ref: 1889, the “British Weekly” commissioners, “Sempstresses—West End Tailoresses”, in [Margaret Harkness], editor, Toilers in London; or, Inquiries Concerning Female Labour in the Metropolis. Being the Second Part of “Tempted London.”, London: Hodder and Stoughton, […], page 236:
text: It was to the last class that [Stéphanie Félicité,] Madame [de Genlis] belongs, and perhaps her boast of her knowledge of half-a-dozen languages, and her proficiency on no fewer than nine instruments, among them what Victor Hugo called “the bug-pipes,” and of her acquaintance with field labour and gardening, may simply mean that she was Jill of all trades and mistress of none; […]
ref: 1891 April 3, “Four Frenchwomen”, in The Morning Post, number 37,067, London, page 3, column 2:
text: That New York skirt dancer arrested for non-support of his family, who is a female impersonator and can paint, teach music, and do beautiful embroidery seems to be a Jill of all trades and mistress of none.
ref: 1898 June 15, Lewiston Evening Journal, 5 p. m. edition, Lewiston, Me., page 4, column 2:
text: This is no time for dabsters, for half-trained, under-equipped girls and women. So much of the education girls receive tends to make them Jills of all trades and mistresses of none.
ref: 1917 June 1, Marguerite Mooers Marshall, quoting Mrs. F. H. Dike, “Efficiency in Patriotism Puts Women on Firm Basis For Service to Country: Women’s Section of Navy League Starts a School to Teach It”, in The Evening World, New York, N.Y.: The Press Publishing Co., page 7, column 1:
text: Mrs. [Blanche A.] Wheatley gives the following characteristic account of herself: […] I have a public school education supplemented by home study; am an inveterate reader, a verse-writer and newspaper contributor; a pen-and-ink-artist of some ability, and a real homebody skilled in every domestic art, including flower culture. I am, in fact, a ‘Jill-of-all-trades-and-mistress-of-none.’
ref: 1923, “Blanche A. Wheatley”, in Ella May Turner, editor, Stories and Verse of West Virginia, Hagerstown, Md.: The Diamond Binding & Printing Co., section “Period of the Development of the State under the New Constitution (1872-1922)”, page 343:
text: Philosopher [L. A.] Woods would spread the learning thin and make Jills of all trades and mistresses of none out of our school teachers.
ref: 1941 March 13, E. M. Pooley, “Side-Bar Remarks”, in El Paso Herald-Post, volume LXI, number 62, El Paso, Tex., page 4, column 1:
text: ‘Oh, that. I sketch, I do a little clay modelling, engraving, lithography . . . I’m a Jill of all trades and mistress of none.’
ref: 1973, Frederick E[screet] Smith, The Persuaders!, book three, London: Pan Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 16:
text: “Hermione Kiddle,” she said, when we had finished. “I belong to the Players. I’m wardrobe mistress, and secretary and treasurer and a lot of other things besides. Jill of all trades and mistress of none. That’s Hermione Kiddle.”
ref: 1975, Alice Dwyer-Joyce, The Strolling Players, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press; London: Robert Hale & Company, →ISBN, page 62:
text: D[orothy].H[ewett]. […] So I began to think, okay if I’m going to be writing all these things, how am I going to do it? I write short stories, I write poetry. I’ve written a novel and I want to write drama, I write articles. I’m going to end up a jill of all trades and mistress of none.
ref: 1988, “Dorothy Hewett talking with Drusilla Modjeska”, in Mary Chamberlain, editor, Writing Lives: Conversations Between Women Writers, Virago Press, →ISBN, pages 95–96:
text: It’s a standing joke in my family about all my many majors. Not that I’m fickle, but because I enjoyed so many pursuits, I couldn’t decide. Yet none was inclusive of all my interests. I’m a “Jill of all trades,” and a mistress of none.
ref: 1993, Jill Bond, Dinner’s in the Freezer! — More Mary and Less Martha, 3rd edition, Lake Hamilton, Fla.: Reed Bond Books, →ISBN, page 1 - 7:
text: It is very illuminating that, unless an artisan’s daughter married a man in the trade that was carried on in her parental home, and of which she therefore had some knowledge, she would not be able to continue in this trade—but would be expected to adjust to her husband’s trade, and thus change her work-pattern. To be flexible in this way—jills of all trades and mistresses of none—may have had negative consequences on women’s work-performance.
ref: 1993, Sølvi Sogner, “Historical Features of Women’s Position in Society”, in Nora Federici, Karen Oppenheim Mason, Sølvi Sogner, editors, Women’s Position and Demographic Change, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, part II (Women’s Position as an Outcome of Demographic Change), page 253:
text: Mr Kevin Elliott: […] By focusing on learning skill sets and moving away from trade qualification, Bill 55 risks flooding the construction marketplace with individuals who have limited skill set knowledge without fully appreciating all the facets of a particular trade; in short, Jacks and Jills of all trades and masters and mistresses of none.
ref: 1998 November 17, “Ontario Provincial Council International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades, Local 1494”, in Official Report of Debates (Hansard), the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, →ISSN, pages G-315–G-316, column 1:
text: Multi-skilling however can also have the negative effect of de-skilling the broadcast journalist, forcing her to compromise journalistic quality for the sake of technical excellence. Desktopping liberates women in that it abolishes the old studio-based, purely technical jobs usually held by men with engineering qualifications. Yet desktopping is a form of disempowerment for both men and women, since the journalist is forced to become a Jack (or Jill) of all trades and mistress of none, so her work may appear mediocre.
ref: 2000, Janet Haworth, “Women in radio news: making a difference?”, in Caroline Mitchell, editor, Women and Radio: Airing Differences, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, part 3 (Women working in radio), chapter section “New technology”, page 253:
text: The lecture detailed typical problems with “girls” in the institution: […] As we look over our records and talk with the girls we learn that the majority of them have held varieties of jobs. As a result when they reach us they are veritable Jills of all trades and mistresses of none.
ref: 2001, Lynda Crane, “Origins: Historical and Cultural”, in Mental Retardation: A Community Integration Approach, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, →ISBN, part I (Understanding Mental Retardation), chapter section “Social Control and “Cleansing””, page 54:
text: I contemplated counselling; I thought of social work; I considered teaching. The ordained ministry has given me plenty of opportunity to explore all of these. As a college chaplain I much enjoyed being a Jill of all trades and mistress of none.
ref: 2002, Jo Bailey Wells, “I Was Glad when They Said Unto Me, ‘We Will Go Into the House of the Lord’”, in Christina Rees, editor, Voices of this Calling: Experiences of the First Generation of Women Priests, Norwich: Canterbury Press, →ISBN, page 202:
text: I think I come across so scattered; maybe not scattered, but certainly a “Jill of all trades and mistress of none.”
ref: 2002 July 23, Oonagh Berry, “Tuesday, 7 p.m.”, in Oonagh Berry, Helen Levine, Between Friends: A Year in Letters, Second Story Press, published 2005, republished 2006, →ISBN, page 276:
text: “The problem with doing lots of things is that you are looked on as a Jill of all trades and a mistress of none,” she [Meera Syal] says.
ref: 2004 March 4, Nick Curtis, “Meera’s Bombay dream”, in Evening Standard, page 45:
text: I wonder what Joan [Rivers] puts down where it says “Occupation.” She’s tried everything but streetwalking, I assume. I guess she could put down “Jill of all trades, and mistress of none.” —MICK JAGGER
ref: 2005, Boze Hadleigh, “Slugfests!”, in Celebrity Diss & Tell: Stars Talk About Each Other, Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel Publishing, →ISBN, page 265:
text: I was later to have a University life, a Chaplaincy life, a Psychotherapy life, a Church Ministry and a long Social Services life. One might say “Jill of all trades and mistress of none”.
ref: 2005, Marjorie Inkster, “Introduction”, in Bow and Arrow War: From FANY to Radar in World War II, Oxford: ISIS, published 2008, →ISBN, page xi:
text: ‘What makes you think you’re not intelligent?’ […] ‘Not unintelligent…’ […] ‘Just…um…intellectually unfocused.’ […] ‘I suppose I tend to be a Jill of all trades and mistress of none,’ she finished lightly.
ref: 2007, Susan Napier, chapter 3, in Just Once, Mills & Boon, →ISBN, page 47:
text: [Gretchen] Wilson received her first sheep as a birthday gift from her husband about 25 years ago and she has gradually learned how to spin, weave and make felt from the wool. “I say I’m a Jill of all trades and a mistress of none,” she said.
ref: 2014 April 9, “Highwood Senior Center news”, in The River Press, year 134, number 25, Fort Benton, Mont., page 5:
glosses: Alternative form of Jill of all trades, mistress of none.