What is "spinsterhood"

Usage examples of "spinsterhood".

But John had been sweet and attentive, and after anticipating spinsterhood, she had been snowed.

So they were both resigned, and happily so, to spinsterhood, and the thought of living with Cissie again delighted them.

To have my mother hooted through the street and spat on, my sister living out her old age in spinsterhood as no man would attach himself to her?

Michael Ivanovich remembered how he had realised that she was on the road to spinsterhood, and desired but one thing for her.

Apparently it was one of the privileges of spinsterhood, that a woman could eat well in public.

In Scotland they are usually high-nosed maiden ladies, and such a spinsterhood might well have seemed to be the destiny of Harriet Westwater.

Elizabeth had long resigned herself to spinsterhood, in fact, she found certain promises and comforts in the idea, and she was not pleasantly surprised or flattered by this unexpected and unwanted attention.

She would never hide behind a mask of spinsterhood, too frightened to risk loving another person.

His proposal to Maggie was covert and couched in terms as if he were doing her a favour by presenting her with a ready-made family because she was so far gone in her spinsterhood that it was very unlikely that she would breed now.