Word.ws English Dictionary

old maid

/əʊld meɪd/

old maid noun: an old woman who has never married; a spinster.

Noun (1)

old maid (countable and uncountable, plural old maids)

  1. (derogatory) An old woman who has never married; a spinster.
    • If she is looking for the perfect man before she marries, she'll be an old maid.
    • The people produce far more food than they consume, and exchange the surplus for gongs and brass cannon, ancient jars, and gold and silver ornaments, which constitute their wealth. On the whole, they appear very free from disease, marriages take place early (but not too early), and old bachelors...1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 141
    Synonyms:
    spinster
  2. The Madagascar periwinkle.
    • The following are the only hardy species grown, but V. rosea, with rosy or white flowers, is a pretty greenhouse plant known as ' Old Maid ' or ' Madagascar Periwinkle'.1901, John Weathers, A Practical Guide to Garden Plants
    • Vincas — Old Maids or Periwinkles, often serve a useful purpose as edgings or ground work to beds or borders.1915, Trinidad. Dept. of Agriculture, Bulletin - Volumes 14-21, page 21
  3. The common zinnia.
    • Zinnias are sometimes known as "Old Maids" in the South.1989, William C. Welch, Perennial Garden Color, page 247
    • Of annuals: Sweet Alyssum, Amaranthus — Prince's Feather, and Love lies bleeding, Celosia— Cock's comb; Asters, Callistephus— China and German Asters, Centaurea, Bachelor's Button, Clarkia Coreopsis, Datura, Escholzia, Hibuiscus— Rose Mallow, Iberis— Candy tuft, Impatiens— Balsam, Lavatera, Lupin...1868, The New England Farmer - Volume 2, page 347
  4. An unpopped kernel in a batch of popped popcorn kernels.
    • Crawford asked Congress to double funding for the FDA's $200 million old-maid-elimination research project.2004 April 29 – May 5, "Unpopped Kernels Costing U.S. Billions", The Onion, available in Embedded in America, →ISBN, page 147
  5. (uncountable) A card game in which cards must be paired and one unmatchable card is designated "old maid".
  6. The unmatchable card in that game.

Noun (2) capitalized: Old Maid

Old Maid (countable and uncountable, plural Old Maids)

  1. (uncountable) A children's card game, sometimes played with a special deck, where the object of the game is for each player to find matches for all the cards in his hand, without being stuck with the single unmatchable card.
    • The only card games I know are Go Fish and Old Maid.
  2. (countable) The unmatchable card itself.
    • The Joker will serve as the Old Maid.

old maid meaning in Tamil and Urdu

old maid in Tamil

நித்தியகலியாணி

old maid in Urdu

کنواری بڑھیا

Examples of old maid in a sentence

  • On the whole, they appear very free from disease, marriages take place early (but not too early), and old bachelors and old maids are alike unknown.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 141:
  • Don f. (Apocynaceae), known as Old Maid or Madagascar periwinkle, has floral nectaries that combine both functions.2004, African Entomology: Journal of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa:
  • Décor featured a centerpiece at the old maid's party—the old maid flower, a zinnia.2006, Anne Hart, 102 Ways to Apply Career Training in Family History/Genealogy, →ISBN:
  • If the children are grown ..., verbena, old maids [zinnias], phlox, and four-o'clocks, crowd each together for space2011, Susan Haltom, Jane Roy Brown, One Writer’s Garden: Eudora Welty’s Home Place, →ISBN, page 101:

Synonyms of old maid

Forms of old maid

pluralold maids
pluralOld Maids

Words formed from old maid

Questions about old maid

What does old maid mean?
Old maid means an old woman who has never married; a spinster.
What is old maid in Tamil?
Old maid in Tamil is நித்தியகலியாணி. See Old maid meaning in Tamil.
How do you use old maid in a sentence?
On the whole, they appear very free from disease, marriages take place early (but not too early), and old bachelors and old maids are alike unknown.
What part of speech is old maid?
Old maid is a noun.
How do you pronounce old maid?
Old maid is pronounced /əʊld meɪd/.
What is the plural of old maid?
The plural of old maid is old maids.

Words near old maid in the dictionary

  1. old long syne
  2. Old Low Franconian
  3. Old Low German
  4. Old Lyme
  5. Old Macedonian
  6. old maid
  7. old maid's bonnet
  8. old maid's bonnets
  9. old maids
  10. Old Malay
  11. Old Malayalam

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: old maid (page history and authors); Old Maid (page history and authors); old maid (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); old maid (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-old maid.wav.

Cite this entry: “old maid.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/old_maid. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.