Old maid

//əʊld meɪd// noun

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An old woman who has never married; a spinster. countable, derogatory, uncountable

    "If she is looking for the perfect man before she marries, she'll be an old maid."

  2. 2
    A children's card game, sometimes played with a special deck, where the object of the game is for each player to find matches for all the cards in his hand, without being stuck with the single unmatchable card. uncountable

    "The only card games I know are Go Fish and Old Maid."

  3. 3
    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’) wordnet
  4. 4
    The Madagascar periwinkle. countable, uncountable

    "The following are the only hardy species grown, but V. rosea, with rosy or white flowers, is a pretty greenhouse plant known as ' Old Maid ' or ' Madagascar Periwinkle'."

  5. 5
    The unmatchable card itself. countable

    "The Joker will serve as the Old Maid."

Show 8 more definitions
  1. 6
    the loser in a game of old maid wordnet
  2. 7
    The common zinnia. countable, uncountable

    "Zinnias are sometimes known as "Old Maids" in the South."

  3. 8
    an elderly unmarried woman wordnet
  4. 9
    An unpopped kernel in a batch of popped popcorn kernels. countable, uncountable

    "2004 April 29 – May 5, "Unpopped Kernels Costing U.S. Billions", The Onion, available in Embedded in America, →ISBN, page 147, Crawford asked Congress to double funding for the FDA's $200 million old-maid-elimination research project."

  5. 10
    commonly cultivated Old World woody herb having large pinkish to red flowers wordnet
  6. 11
    A card game in which cards must be paired and one undesirable card is designated "old maid". uncountable
  7. 12
    any of various plants of the genus Zinnia cultivated for their variously and brightly colored flower heads wordnet
  8. 13
    The unmatchable card in that game. countable, uncountable

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