old-maidism
English
Etymology
old maid + -ism
Noun
old-maidism (countable and uncountable, plural old-maidisms)
- The condition or characteristics of a spinster.
- 1857, George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life Part III, Chapter 3
- The Miss Linnets were in that temperate zone of old-maidism, when a woman will not say but that if a man of suitable years and character were to offer himself, she might be induced to tread the remainder of life's vale in company with him;
- 1857, George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life Part III, Chapter 3
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for old-maidism in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)