Crossword clues for spinster
spinster
- Legs concealed by mostly severe woman not in formal relationship
- Put a favourable slant on knight abandoning inflexible old maid
- Unmarried woman
- Unmarried woman in a DJ, you could say
- Old maid
- Never-married woman
- Miss Marple or Miss Havisham
- Maiden lady
- Like some aunts of yore
- Eleanor Rigby, for one
- Bachelorette, pejoratively
- Bachelor bait
- "Arsenic and Old Lace" aunt, e.g
- Bachelorette of a certain age
- Bachelor's counterpart
- One who's not the marrying type
- Frumpy loner, stereotypically
- An elderly unmarried woman
- Someone who spins (who twists fibers into threads)
- O'Neill's Lavinia Mannon, e.g.
- Dickens's Miss Havisham, e.g.
- Bachelorette's older relative
- Old maid with legs in plaster after leaving behind unending drama
- Society playwright clothes son for single woman
- Singleton in spades stops south player taking extra ruff initially
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Spinster \Spin"ster\, n. [Spin + -ster.]
-
A woman who spins, or whose occupation is to spin.
She spake to spinster to spin it out.
--Piers Plowman.The spinsters and the knitters in the sun.
--Shak. A man who spins. [Obs.]
--Shak.-
(Law) An unmarried or single woman; -- used in legal proceedings as a title, or addition to the surname.
If a gentlewoman be termed a spinster, she may abate the writ.
--Coke. A woman of evil life and character; -- so called from being forced to spin in a house of correction. [Obs.]
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
mid-14c., "female spinner of thread," from Middle English spinnen (see spin) + -stere, feminine suffix (see -ster). Unmarried women were supposed to occupy themselves with spinning, hence the word came to be "the legal designation in England of all unmarried women from a viscount's daughter downward" [Century Dictionary] in documents from 1600s to early 1900s, and by 1719 the word was being used generically for "woman still unmarried and beyond the usual age for it."\n\nSpinster, a terme, or an addition in our Common Law, onely added in Obligations, Euidences, and Writings, vnto maids vnmarried.
[John Minsheu, "Ductor in Linguas," 1617]
\nStrictly in reference to those who spin, spinster also was used of both sexes (compare webster, baxter, brewster) and so a double-feminine form emerged, spinstress "a female spinner" (1640s), which by 1716 also was being used for "maiden lady." Related: Spinsterhood.Wiktionary
n. 1 A woman who has never been married, especially one past the typical marrying age according to social traditions. 2 One who spins (puts a spin on) a political media story so as to give something a favorable or advantageous appearance; a spin doctor, spin merchant or spin master. 3 (context obsolete English) Someone whose occupation was spinning thread. 4 (context obsolete English) A woman of evil life and character; so called from being forced to spin in a house of correction. 5 (context rare English) A spider; an insect (such as a silkworm) which spins thread.
WordNet
n. an elderly unmarried woman [syn: old maid]
someone who spins (who twists fibers into threads) [syn: spinner, thread maker]
Wikipedia
A spinster is an unmarried woman who is past the usual age for marrying and is considered unlikely to marry.
An 18-year-old single woman would not be considered a spinster in contemporary language, but a single, 40-year-old woman may be considered a spinster. Several dictionaries flag it as a derogatory term. (See Current use.) A synonymous, but more pejorative, term is Old Maid.
Usage examples of "spinster".
As a gently bred spinster long on the shelf, she was not supposed to be aware of such things, but she had five brothers and was not a complete fool.
And like a schoolgirl of seventeen instead of a spinster of seven-and-twenty, she continued to harbor a ridiculous infatuation for him.
She was the spinster sister who would always be there to take care of the tedious little details of their daily lives, and they never saw the intelligent, sweet woman so deserving of their regard.
But at least, and at last, she had done this amazing thing, and would never be a pathetic spinster ever again.
But the most devastating of all was the discovery that his prized beauties, his cherished Arabians, had been peddled off like swine to Charles Gray-son, the cunning Baron Sytheford, who would actually force a marriage to his brassy, spinster daughter for their return.
I married an intelligent, elegant lady instead of a plain spinster who can do no more with her time than plant flowers.
English baron who had a spinster daughter to protect and an impeccable reputation to uphold.
Laura who was being initiated into the pleasures of sex to the flesh-and-blood spinster that was herself.
Certainly it did not belong to the placid spinster everyone took her to be.
As long as he remained a colonel instead of a man, then he was a part of the storm and she remained a spinster lady merely engaged in safe, however illicit, conversation.
Suddenly a voice came from a long distance away, surely not hers, any more than the ache in her breasts and the throb between her thighs belonged to her, a spinster who should be beyond the desires of her youth, a lady who should never experience such desires no matter what her age.
And realized that her hair was still caught up in the ugly bun that told the world she was a staid spinster, while inside her burned the same needs and wants that burned inside him, she caught up in a society that denied her womanhood, he caught up in a career that he had chosen when he was too young to know better.
An aging spinster who had propositioned a strangerand then had begged and cried for him not to stop.
They reminded her that, whether she be a staid spinster or a genteel lady or a wanton seductress, she was first and foremost a woman.
A girl needed to keep her options open--else she might just end a shriveled-up spinster at the age of twenty--like poor Inge.