old maid
"old-maid" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“old maid” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An old woman who has never married; a spinster.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | old maid |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “old maid” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for old maid is 8 letters long, classified as a noun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for old maid in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is old maid, spelled O-L-D- -M-A-I-D.
Definition
- 1An old woman who has never married; a spinster.
- 2The Madagascar periwinkle.
- 3The common zinnia.
- 4An unpopped kernel in a batch of popped popcorn kernels.
- 5A card game in which cards must be paired and one undesirable card is designated "old maid".
- 6The unmatchable card in that game.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
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Using “old maid”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-L-D- -M-A-I-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.