old maid

American  

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.

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old maid British  

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

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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. See also spinster.

Other Word Forms

• old-maidish adjective

Etymology

Origin of old maid

First recorded in 1520–30

Example Sentences

My dad was divorced, and my mom was an old maid by Belarusian standards.

From Los Angeles Times • May 30, 2025

If they chance upon the foul water, they are set to marry a widow or widower and if they choose the empty dish "the person is destined to be a bachelor or an old maid".

From Salon • Oct. 30, 2023

Still, we suspect that she is a sad case, a solitary old maid gabbing to her niece about happier times.

From The New Yorker • May 1, 2017

“Your piano’s an old maid with a gray tabby on her lap,” Rosetta says bluntly.

From New York Times • Sep. 14, 2016

His mind went on to the two women in the house, the tight-lipped old maid and the girl.

From "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie