Ayah example sentences

Related (8): nanny, nursemaid, governess, caregiver, maid, servant, housekeeper, childminder

"Ayah" Example Sentences

My grandmother had an ayah who raised her through childhood in colonial India.
The ayah would wake us every morning with a cup of warm milk and biscuits.
She worked as an ayah for three different families before saving enough to open her own shop.
The children grew so attached to their ayah that saying goodbye was heartbreaking.
In her memoir, she describes the ayah as the person who truly raised her, not her distant mother.
The ayah taught me Hindi words and old songs I still remember.
Finding a trustworthy ayah was one of the biggest challenges families faced back then.
My mother's ayah lived with us for forty years — she was family, really.
The ayah in the household had more authority over the children than anyone else.
She became an ayah at sixteen and worked until her seventies.
The novel's protagonist is raised by an ayah after her mother dies in childbirth.
An ayah's wages were meager, but the job provided housing and food.
The ayah would tell us stories about her own village while braiding our hair.
Colonial families often relied entirely on their ayah to manage the children's daily lives.
She hired an ayah to help with the newborn, though her mother disapproved.
The ayah knew every childhood fear and secret of the children in her care.
In those days, having an ayah was a sign of middle-class respectability.
The ayah's departure from the household left a silence nobody expected.
He wrote about his ayah with such tenderness that readers wept.
The ayah managed to save enough to send her own daughter to school.
Without her ayah, she would have been completely lost during those early years.
The relationship between a child and their ayah often outlasted marriages and friendships.
An ayah's job meant being on call at all hours, seven days a week.
The ayah spoke to the children in a mix of languages — English, Hindi, and Urdu.
She missed her ayah more than she missed her own parents after moving abroad.
The ayah would smuggle extra food to the servants' quarters at night.
Hiring an ayah was one of the first things they did after arriving in the colony.
The ayah's hands were rough from work, but her touch was always gentle with the children.
In the photograph, the ayah stands slightly behind the family, almost invisible.
The ayah had raised five generations of children in the same house.

Common Phrases

ayah's care
hire an ayah
the ayah and the children
ayah's wages
raise by an ayah
work as an ayah
the family ayah
ayah's duties
trusted ayah
ayah's departure

Examples by Level

The ayah takes care of the children every day.
My ayah taught me to read when I was small.

The ayah in our house has worked for our family for many years.
She became an ayah because she needed to support her own children.

Looking back, I realize my ayah showed me more love than my own mother ever did.
The ayah's job was exhausting — she worked from dawn until the children slept.

The colonial families depended so heavily on their ayah that the household would have collapsed without her.
She wrote about her ayah with such affection that you could feel the genuine bond between them.

The ayah occupied a peculiar position in the household hierarchy — simultaneously indispensable and invisible.
What the memoir captures so powerfully is how the ayah became the emotional center of the family, even as she remained socially marginal.

The figure of the ayah in postcolonial literature often embodies the contradictions of care work under empire — intimate yet exploited, beloved yet disposable.
Her recollection of the ayah transcends nostalgia; it interrogates the very structures of affection and obligation that bound them across lines of class and nation.

Examples by Scenario

🏠 Everyday Life

The ayah next door brings her charges to the park every afternoon at three o'clock.
My neighbor's ayah has been with them so long that she's basically part of the family now.

💼 Workplace

The office manager mentioned she used to work as an ayah before getting her current job.
We were discussing childcare options and someone suggested hiring an ayah like their parents had done.

📊 Business

The startup is developing an app to connect families with qualified ayahs in urban areas.
The domestic worker agency reported increased demand for experienced ayahs among expat families.

🛒 Buying / Shopping

I'm looking for a good ayah in the area — do you have any recommendations?
The salary range for an ayah in this city has gone up significantly in the last five years.

✈️ Travel

When we traveled to India, we stayed with relatives who had an ayah managing the household.
The hotel concierge offered to arrange an ayah for guests traveling with young children.

📚 Education

The teacher asked students to write about a caregiver who influenced them — many wrote about their ayah.
The university course on postcolonial literature included a section on the ayah as a literary figure.

❤️ Relationships

She confessed that her ayah understood her better than her own mother ever did.
The most painful part of leaving India was saying goodbye to the ayah who had raised him.

📰 News / Politics

The labor rights organization is pushing for better protections for domestic workers, including ayahs.
A recent study examined the working conditions and wages of ayahs across South Asian cities.

💻 Technology

The new app connects families with vetted ayahs and includes GPS tracking and daily photo updates.
She posted a nostalgic photo of her childhood ayah on social media and it went viral.

📝 Formal Writing

The research paper analyzes the role of the ayah in maintaining colonial household structures during the nineteenth century.
Historical records indicate that the ayah was often the primary attachment figure for children in British colonial families.