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View synonyms for old maid

old maid

noun

  1. Disparaging and Offensive. an elderly or confirmed spinster.
  2. a fussy, timid, prudish person.
  3. Cards.
    1. a simple game, played with a deck having one card removed, in which the players draw from one another to match pairs and the one holding an odd queen at the end loses.
    2. the loser of such a game.


old maid

noun

  1. a woman regarded as unlikely ever to marry; spinster
  2. informal.
    a prim, fastidious, or excessively cautious person
  3. a card game using a pack from which one card has been removed, in which players try to avoid holding the unpaired card at the end of the game
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Sensitive Note

The meaning “a spinster” is used with disparaging intent and perceived as insulting. It puts emphasis on the woman’s advanced age and assumed inability to ever attract a husband. spinster.
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Derived Forms

  • ˌold-ˈmaidish, adjective
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Word History and Origins

Origin of old maid1

First recorded in 1520–30
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Example Sentences

No wonder that of all the Bradys, it is the quintessential old maid who we miss the most.

My high-school friends had their priorities straight: they knew not to become an “old maid” or an “old mom.”

He and I have been seeing each other for four years now, which makes me, at age 30, an unmarried old maid myself.

Remember the days when an unmarried 16 year old was considered an old maid?

When I am an old maid I am going to mount the platform and preach the training of the voice in childhood.

And she had struggled valiantly against becoming an embittered old maid; in the main, had succeeded.

It was her old maid, Pauline, who is here with her in this hotel to-night, and who has looked after her all her life nearly.

A caller at the home of Mlle. Cormon, and afterwards at that of M. du Bousquier, who married "the old maid."

We went there on radioed orders, the complaint being phoned into headquarters by some old maid whose sleep was disturbed.

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Old Low Germanold-maidish