old maid
Disparaging and Offensive. an elderly or confirmed spinster.
a fussy, timid, prudish person.
Cards.
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.
the loser of such a game.
Origin of old maid
1usage note For old maid
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use old maid in a sentence
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.
Ancestors | Gertrude Atherton
And she had struggled valiantly against becoming an embittered old maid; in the main, had succeeded.
Ancestors | Gertrude AthertonIt 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 Butterfly on the Wheel | Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger GullA caller at the home of Mlle. Cormon, and afterwards at that of M. du Bousquier, who married "the old maid."
Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A -- Z | Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois ChristopheWe went there on radioed orders, the complaint being phoned into headquarters by some old maid whose sleep was disturbed.
British Dictionary definitions for old maid
a woman regarded as unlikely ever to marry; spinster
informal a prim, fastidious, or excessively cautious person
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
Derived forms of old maid
- old-maidish, adjective
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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