old maid

old maid

1. dated A disparaging term for an older, unmarried woman. She had a few suitors in her youth, but now Edna is an old maid. My parents are pressuring me to get married—they don't want any of their daughters to become an old maid.
2. A fussy, prudish person. You better make sure the place settings are perfect, what with the old maid coming to dinner tonight.
3. A card game in which players pair matching cards and try to avoid being the last one holding the only card with no mate, dubbed the "old maid." When my kids were little, they loved playing old maid.
See also: maid, old
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

an old ˈmaid

(old-fashioned, disapproving) a woman who has never married and is now no longer young
See also: maid, old
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • an old maid
  • maid
  • ape leader
  • leader
  • be mutton dressed as lamb
  • old woman
  • mutton dressed (up) as lamb
  • mutton dressed as lamb
  • titless wonder
  • damn Yankee
References in periodicals archive
"The New Old Maid" speaks to a topic that's trending and a demographic that's growing.
The New Old Maid
In gentry homes of middling affluence, the old maid compensated for the additional burden she placed on the household by service to the family.
Choosing spinsterhood: enacting singleness in Persuasion
So the next time you play Old Maid, be sure to shuffle at least four times.
Shuffling shenanigans
She, in turn, teaches her daughter that an "old maid" is "an impersonation of whimsicalities, at best to be pitied, and that her condition is, at all risks, to be avoided" (2: 81).
"Married or single?": Catharine Maria Sedgwick on old maids, wives, and marriage
The second half of the evening consisted of the more elaborate The Old Maid and the Thief.
Halifax
Invisible Old Maid now contains characters rooted in the quirks and characteristics of 21st century daily life, such as Dot Com Darius and Unibrow Unis.
Invisible card games provide visible fun
Old MAID is a game, new MAID is becoming a reality.
Are you ready for MAID technology? All disks spinning all the time? Not necessarily
(118.) "Honorable Often to Be an Old Maid," May 1858, quoted in Cogan, All-American Girl, 107.
"THE BEST OR NONE!" SPINSTERHOOD IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY NEW ENGLAND
Since I'm single, people think I'm just an old maid. I talked to my pastor, who comes from a family of 14 kids, and he said, "Oh, but they're so cute."
LETTERS
When I was working at the Fashion Cooperative I tried, despite the watchful eye of the dark, ugly old maid, to steal a pair of suspenders.
Hell has gradations
She won a Pulitzer Prize for her dramatization of Edith Wharton's THE OLD MAID, produced in 1935.
Akins, Zoe (1886-1958)
ISLAMABAD -- Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani Monday detached himself from hearing trial against OSD Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Raja Khurram Ali Khan and his wife in 10-year old maid Tayyaba's torture case.
Justice Kayani detaches himself from Tayyaba torture case
The 19- year- old maid, who was hired through a placement agency, had accused Singh of raping her in the house of his father- in- law on May 12, 2009 and she was threatened by him not to disclose it to anyone.
Court acquits man in false rape case
Here lies Ann Mann Who lived an old maid But died an old Mann.
Tomb it may concern
The marriage is called off and Cletus fears Mary will become an "old maid" at the age of 11.
BRIDE OF BART