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.
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
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
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
Any one would with that old fogy, old man Harrison, worrying you to death with his old-maidish ways.
From The Rosie World by Parker Fillmore
And now Gustave Tronchet and his bride-elect are still moving from group to group in the salon, and the diffident, old-maidish Englishwoman is transfigured.
From The Disturbing Charm by Berta Ruck
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.
