The terms steward or stewardess can refer to a number of different professional roles.

• The title of Steward was sometimes given to the person in charge of a noble's domestic staff and household. Equivalent terms include majordomo, castellan, and seneschal. In some countries, the duties of a steward became more substantial, and included the management of finances and property. The House of Stuart, which eventually became the royal house of Scotland, originally gained both its position and its name from their position as stewards to the king. A fictional example is the Stewards of Gondor, found in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.
• A steward or stewardess can be a person employed in attending to the safety and comfort of passengers aboard a ship or an aircraft. In the 1930s, airlines began calling their employees stewardesses (nearly all were female) based on the use of this term on ships. During the 1970s the gender-neutral term flight attendant was adopted. Persons who learned the term before that often still call flight attendants "stewardesses". And still the nickname among flight attendants for themselves is "stew".