spinster
spinster
noun
spinsterhood
noun
spinsterish
adjective
语源
noun
- an unmarried woman, typically an older woman beyond the usual age for marriage
老处女
spinsterhood
noun
spinsterish
adjective
语源
- late Middle English (in the sense 'woman who spins'): from the verb spin + -ster; in early use the term was appended to names of women to denote their occupation. The current sense dates from the early 18th cent
- The development of the word spinster is a good example of the way in which a word acquires strong connotations to the extent that it can no longer be used in a neutral sense. From the 17th century the word was appended to names as the official legal description of an unmarried womanElizabeth Harris of London, Spinster;this type of use survives today in some legal and religious contexts. In modern everyday English, however, spinster cannot be used to mean simply ‘unmarried woman’; it is now always a derogatory term, referring or alluding to a stereotype of an older woman who is unmarried, childless, prissy, and repressed
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