old-maidish
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of old-maidish
First recorded in 1750–60
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He is indeed a Bostonian, with a Harvard accent, a vaguely old-maidish face and a wardrobe of sedate grey suits.
From Time Magazine Archive
Both sides made hesitant, amateurish use of TV, handicapped by their own fears of it, and by the old-maidish restrictions of the government-owned BBC.
From Time Magazine Archive
In 1925, after his name had been most prominently mentioned, the Swedish Academy, with the old-maidish perversity for which it is famed, withheld the prize for a year, finally awarded it to George Bernard Shaw.
From Time Magazine Archive
Bella shuddered at the words, and Sonnenkamp exclaimed,— "O Bella! noble soul, alone great among women, cast away all these European casuistries; with a single step put this whole, old-maidish Europe behind you!"
From Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine by Auerbach, Berthold
I want them to know her, and yet I feel how difficult it is to describe her—or rather him, though I shall continue to say her—without writing in a goody-goody or old-maidish style.
From The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan by Stables, Gordon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
