old maid
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
While Agathe initially identifies with the wilting old maid Anne from “Persuasion,” her shyly budding connection with Oliver is more Elizabeth Bennet in “Pride and Prejudice.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 23, 2025
If they chance upon the foul water, they are set to marry a widow or widower and if they choose the empty dish "the person is destined to be a bachelor or an old maid".
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2023
One instance was fairly low stakes: she told my sister-in-law I had called her an old maid, which was not true.
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2021
Still, we suspect that she is a sad case, a solitary old maid gabbing to her niece about happier times.
From The New Yorker ● May 1, 2017
“Four years of high school...no, five. Because something would come up to delay me. Then four years of college. I’d be a dried-up old maid of twenty-five before I was finished.”
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
