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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



... more ruthless. She was now up against her own fate. It was for her to choose between being Mrs. Skrebensky, even Baroness Skrebensky, wife of a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, the Sappers, as he called them, living with the European population in India—or being Ursula Brangwen, spinster, school-mistress. She was qualified by her Intermediate Arts examination. She would probably even now get a post quite easily as assistant in one of the higher grade schools, or even in Willey Green School. Which ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... comical attire, an eminent Oxford divine, whose life and works commanded reverence, was once mistaken for an ancient New England spinster in emancipated garments. His smoothly shaven face, framed in crinkly, gray locks, was surmounted by a soft, little, round hat, from the up-turned brim of which dangled a broken string. His long frock-coat reached to just above his loosely ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley

... schooling, which morally is of great importance. But the argument fails also on other grounds: it assumes that all men have children equally; it asserts that the married man with his five children has no more responsibility than the elderly spinster who lives next door; it supposes that the parents have not a special interest in their children, distinct from that which can be felt by any other person whatever. It may be further urged, that if a man pays for his children while they ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... tape. The gaping of this garment revealed a breast to be likened only to that of an old peasant woman who cares nothing about her personal ugliness. The fleshless arm was like a stick on which a bit of stuff was hung. Seen at her window, this spinster seemed tall from the length and angularity of her face, which recalled the exaggerated proportions of certain Swiss heads. The character of their countenance—the features being marked by a total want of harmony—was that of hardness in ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... inimical to the personal freedom of its members, and hence that the state, which is now standardizing child-care, must undertake the practical duties involved and leave both parents free to change marital relationship at will before or after the birth of children and maintain their separate bachelor or spinster freedom. ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer


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