maiden

Meaning

Noun

1. (literary) A girl or an unmarried young woman.
2. (archaic) A female virgin.
3. (dialectal, obsolete) A man with no experience of sex, especially because of deliberate abstention.
4. A maidservant.
5. A clothes maiden.
6. (archaic) An unmarried woman, especially an older woman.
7. A racehorse without any victory, i.e. one having a "virgin record".
8. A horse race in which all starters are maidens.
9. (historical) A Scottish counterpart of the guillotine.
10. A maiden over.
11. (obsolete) A machine for washing linen.
12. (alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of Maiden.

Adj

1. (not-comparable) Virgin.
2. (not-comparable) Without offspring.
3. (not-comparable) Like or befitting a (young, unmarried) maiden.
4. (figuratively, not-comparable) Being a first occurrence or event.
5. (not-comparable) Being an over in which no runs are scored.
6. (not-comparable) Fresh; innocent; unpolluted; pure; hitherto unused.
7. (not-comparable) Never having been captured or violated.
8. (not-comparable) Grown from seed and never pruned.

Synonyms

virgin

girl

👧

maid

damsel

young girl

first

1st

lass

young woman

virginal

woman

👩

wench

girlish

inaugural

daughter

unmarried

vestal

demoiselle

lassie

unmarried woman

single

maidenly

damoiselle

maidservant

Miss

damozel

initiatory

damosel

initiative

maiden over

miss

the fair sex

Fraulein

babe

shiksa

bachelor

chaste

cherry

colleen

dame

female

♀️

feminine

♀️

fiancée

fille

fresh

friend

lady

little girl

mademoiselle

may

mesdemoiselles

Translations

vierge

Jungfrau

doncella

jeune fille

👧

Mädchen

👧

virgo

pucelle

vergine

demoiselle

Maid

👧

donzela

donzella

signorina

παρθενικός

Fräulein

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈmeɪdən/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: mayden

Inherited from Old English: mæġden

In summary

From Middle English mayden, meiden, from Old English mæġden (“girl”), originally a diminutive of mæġeþ (“girl”) via diminutive suffix -en, from Proto-West Germanic *magaþ, from Proto-Germanic *magaþs. Equivalent to maid + -en.