old maid
"old-maid" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“old maid” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An old woman who has never married; a spinster.
Corpus desk
Index EN-old-maid · old maid · English
old maid · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "O" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | old maid |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “old maid” in English
Rare enough to double-check
old maid is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 6 senses are on record.
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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how old maid appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
If she is looking for the perfect man before she marries, she'll be an old maid.
The people produce far more food than they consume, and exchange the surplus for gongs and brass cannon, ancient jars, and gold and silver ornaments, which constitute their wealth. On the whole, they appear very free from disease, marriages take place early (but not too early), and old bachelors and old maids are alike unknown. Why, then, we must inquire,…
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.