Abigail

Abigail (Heb. Abigayil, perhaps father is joy), or Abigal (2 Sam. iii. 3), in the Bible, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite, on whose death she became the wife of David (1 Sam. xxv.). By her David had a son, whose name appears in the Hebrew of 2 Sam. iii. 3 as Chileab, in the Septuagint as Daluyah, and in 1 Chron. iii. 1 as Daniel. The name Abigail was also borne by a sister of David (2 Sam. xvii. 25; 1 Chron. ii. 16 f.). From the former (self-styled handmaid 1 Sam. xxv. 25 f.) is derived the colloquial use of the term for a waiting-woman (cf. Abigail, the waiting gentlewoman, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady.)