A domestic servant who does both housework and cooking.
Example sentencesExamples
There were domestic service agencies all over England who supplied scullery maids, kitchen maids, parlour maids, chambermaids, cooks general, cooks, butlers, housekeepers, nannies and companions.
With no career training, she took jobs as a cook-general in a variety of London houses.
In such homes the cook-general was frequently the only white servant employed.
Their reduced offers were hardly capable of eliciting the much-prized cooks-general and, more often than not, such employers found that their wages tended to attract 'generals' rather than 'cooks'.
'You have a job in the window?' 'Yes, for an experienced cook-general.'