spinster
Sign in to saveAlso known as old maid
thumb|A poem entitled "It won't be my fault if I die an Old Maid", containing the lines "Remember no thought to a girl is so dread / As the terrible one—She may die an Old Maid."
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- role
- Subclass of
- bachelorette
- Follows
- bachelorette
- Image
- Florence Nightingale by Kilburn c1854.jpg
- Patron saint
- Saint Nicholas
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- Spinsters
- female form of label
- oude vrijster
- does not have characteristic
- young adult
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Encyclopedic overview
8 sectionsContents
- Etymology and history
- Current use
- Research
- Women and marriage
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|A poem entitled "It won't be my fault if I die an Old Maid", containing the lines "Remember no thought to a girl is so dread / As the terrible one—She may die an Old Maid."
Spinster or old maid is a term referring to an unmarried woman who is older than what is perceived as the prime age range during which women usually marry. It can also indicate that a woman is considered unlikely to ever marry. The term originally denoted a woman whose occupation was to spin. The closest equivalent term for males is "bachelor" or "confirmed bachelor" (or, in cases of gay men, "he never married"), but this generally does not carry the same connotations in reference to age and perceived desirability in marriage.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “spinster” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.