Library / English Dictionary

OLD MAID

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A card game using a pack of cards from which one queen has been removed; players match cards and the player holding the unmatched queen at the end of the game is the loser (or 'old maid')

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("old maid" is a kind of...):

card game; cards (a game played with playing cards)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The loser in a game of old maid

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("old maid" is a kind of...):

also-ran; loser (a contestant who loses the contest)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An elderly unmarried woman

Synonyms:

old maid; spinster

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("old maid" is a kind of...):

unmarried woman (a woman who is not married)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Commonly cultivated Old World woody herb having large pinkish to red flowers

Synonyms:

Cape periwinkle; Catharanthus roseus; cayenne jasmine; Madagascar periwinkle; old maid; periwinkle; red periwinkle; rose periwinkle; Vinca rosea

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("old maid" is a kind of...):

herb; herbaceous plant (a plant lacking a permanent woody stem; many are flowering garden plants or potherbs; some having medicinal properties; some are pests)

Holonyms ("old maid" is a member of...):

Catharanthus; genus Catharanthus (small genus of erect annual or perennial herbs native to Madagascar; widely naturalized in the tropics; formerly included in genus Vinca)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Any of various plants of the genus Zinnia cultivated for their variously and brightly colored flower heads

Synonyms:

old maid; old maid flower; zinnia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("old maid" is a kind of...):

flower (a plant cultivated for its blooms or blossoms)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "old maid"):

white zinnia; Zinnia acerosa (subshrub with slender woolly stems and long narrow leaves and flower heads with white rays; southern United States and northern Mexico)

little golden zinnia; Zinnia grandiflora (subshrub having short leafy stems and numerous small flower heads with nearly round yellow-orange rays; Arizona south to Mexico and east to Kansas)

Holonyms ("old maid" is a member of...):

genus Zinnia (genus of annual or perennial plants of tropical America having solitary heads of brightly colored flowers)

Credits

 Context examples: 

A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)