| old maid | |
| —n | |
| 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 |
| old-'maidish | |
| —adj | |
| a gadget; dingus; thingumbob. |
| a chattering or flighty, light-headed person. |
old maid
simple card game popular with young children. It takes its name from a 19th-century specially illustrated deck of cards showing colourful characters in matching pairs, plus a single old maid card. In Germany the equivalent game is called schwarzer Peter ("black Peter") and in France vieux garcon ("old boy").
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