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Spinster   /spˈɪnstər/   Listen
noun
Spinster  n.  
1.
A woman who spins, or whose occupation is to spin. "She spake to spinster to spin it out." "The spinsters and the knitters in the sun."
2.
A man who spins. (Obs.)
3.
(Law) An unmarried or single woman; used in legal proceedings as a title, or addition to the surname. "If a gentlewoman be termed a spinster, she may abate the writ."
4.
A woman of evil life and character; so called from being forced to spin in a house of correction. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spinster" Quotes from Famous Books



... occupation, she regarded her husband; for no man, however wealthy, so he were of low condition, seemed to her worthy to have a gentlewoman to wife; and seeing that for all his wealth he was fit for nothing better than to devise a blend, set up a warp, or higgle about yarn with a spinster, she determined to dispense with his embraces, save so far as she might find it impossible to refuse them; and to find her satisfaction elsewhere with one that seemed to her more meet to afford it than her artificer of woollens. In this frame of mind she became enamoured ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... puss, except to steer as clear of her as possible for fear she should be taking her observations. "Bide as we be"; why, 'tis the best we can do. She can't pick a hole in your mother though, Bess. It would have been hard to have forgiven her that! You're not such an aged spinster.' ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... from a bookmaker showing a small debit balance. There were other miscellaneous bills, a plaintive epistle from a lady signing herself Flora, and begging for the loan of a fiver for a week, and an invitation to tea from a spinster who called herself Poppy. Amongst all this mass of miscellaneous documents there were only three which Wrayson laid on one side for further consideration. One of these was a note, dated from the Adelphi a few days before the tragedy, ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... daughter, as was probable, marry within his lifetime, he could then make what settlements he pleased, even to the changing of the tenor of his will, should he think fit to change it. Should he die and leave her still a spinster, he would trust to her in everything. Not being a man of mystery, he told his wife and his daughter what he had done,—and what he still thought that he possibly might do; and being also a man to whom any suspicion of injustice ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope

... not say so, everybody could see from the outset the pity of its ever having come about at all. The pious and stiffly respectable priest's sister had been harmless enough as a spinster. It made the heart ache to contemplate her as a wife. Incredibly narrow-minded, ignorant, suspicious, vain, and sour-tempered, she must have driven a less equable and well-rooted man than Jeremiah Madden to drink or flight. He ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic


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