old-maidism

English

Etymology

old maid +‎ -ism

Noun

old-maidism (countable and uncountable, plural old-maidisms)

1. The condition or characteristics of a spinster. [from mid-18th c.]
   • 1751, “On the Sin of Living Single. By the Female Student.”, in The Student, Or, The Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany, volume 2, page 349:

     The great cauſe which contributes to OLD MAIDISM is the natural vanity inherent in our ſex ; and which makes us believe, that at any time we may inſure to ourſelves what we hold indiſpenſably our duty for a while to reject.

   • 1768 April, Amanda, “On the Fair-Sex”, in The London Magazine, or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, page 199:

     I might not be ſuppoſed ſo far advanced in old-maidiſm; to have my whole deſign imputed to a ſeverity which ſometimes prevails amongſt that unfortunate claſs of females.

   • 1838, William Engelmann, C. F. Doerffling, editors, The English Novelist: a Collection of Tales by the Most Celebrated English Writers, Old Maids; their Varieties, Characters, and Conditions., page 229:

     An Old Maid is a being rich in all the rarer attributes of her sex,—a fact which has been concealed and hidden from the carping world, solely by its course and selfish opinion as to Old Maidism.

   • 1857, George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life, Part III, Chapter 3:

     The Miss Linnets were in that temperate zone of old-maidism, when a woman will not say but that if a man of suitable years and character were to offer himself, she might be induced to tread the remainder of life's vale in company with him;

   • 1896, Ellen Blackmar Maxwell, Three Old Maids in Hawaii, Eaton & Mains, page 10:

     Rose Tyler, Belinda’s niece, who was short and pretty, had achieved all the old-maidism she boasted, which was, as one might imagine, no ereat amount, having seen only twenty-three years.