Spinsters

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An unmarried woman who is typically older and often regarded as being socially undesirable or left on the shelf
2. A term used historically to describe women who remain single beyond the conventional age for marriage, often implying a lack of suitors
3. A label for women who have not married, particularly those of a certain age, sometimes associated with stereotypes about their lifestyle choices

Etymology: "Spinsters" is the plural of "spinster," and the plural is one of the few places where the word's older sense of a working woman survives in plain view. The noun descends from Middle English "spynnestere," a woman who spun fibre into thread, formed by adding the feminine suffix "-ster" to "spin." Spinning was ordinary women's work for centuries, and an unmarried woman who supported herself at the spinning wheel became known by her trade. The shift from occupation to marital status came through a practical link. Unmarried women were the ones most often found spinning for a living, so the name for the job gradually came to stand for the women who did it, and then for any woman who had not married. By the time the word settled into its modern sense, the trade it once named had largely disappeared from the definition.

Synonyms: unmarried woman, bachelor, maiden, old maid

Antonyms: wife, married woman