spinster
Other forms: spinsters
A spinster is an older, unmarried woman. Even if you're in awe of your Aunt Sally's glamorous, single life, your grandmother might dismiss her as a spinster.
Spinster originally meant "a spinner of thread," and as that was a job typically done by unmarried women, it came to have the meaning — even in legal documents — of "single woman." Another term for spinster is the equally old-fashioned sounding old maid. Either way, it means a woman who never got married. Spinster is not a word you should call anyone: it reduces single women to one detail about their lives.
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an elderly unmarried womansynonyms: old maidtype of:unmarried womana woman who is not married
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someone who spins (who twists fibers into threads)synonyms: spinner, thread maker
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Vocabulary lists containing spinster
In 1960s racially segregated Jackson, Mississippi, aspiring writer Eugenia (Skeeter) Phelan interviews housemaids for a dangerous exposé on their working conditions and treatment.
During World War II, a Lithuanian girl named Lina is detained by Soviet soldiers and taken to a work camp in Siberia, where she must fight to survive.
In this memoir, the author documents how her childhood was torn apart by her parents' decision to emigrate to America to earn enough money for a house in Mexico.