Bachelorette

Bachelorette (pronounced bach-uh-luh-ret or bach-luh-ret)

(1) An unmarried young woman.

(2) In Canada, a term for a small apartment suitable for a single man.

1935: Some sources date the word from 1895 but it appears more likely bachelor-girl was first seen in 1888 and bachelorette is an American invention first noted in 1935.  Root is bachelor which came from the Middle English bachelor, derived from Anglo-Norman bacheler which exists in modern French as bachelier.  The Medieval Latin baccalārius was from Late Latin baccalāris and the Tuscan baccalare.  Ultimate source is a bit murky and strangely, although Old French had bachelette (young girl) in the 1400s, it's something English seems never to have borrowed.

Once were spinsters

Neither bachelor-girl (1888) nor bachelorette (1935) can really be considered proto-feminist because neither replaced spinster; merely re-defined as something applied to older un-married women; in the shifting hierarchy of misogyny, ageism prevailed.  It may thus be thought casual, female-specific ageism, especially because older, un-married men remain described as bachelors even if centenarians.  It’s not clear when spinster came to be thought of as disparaging and offensive but the usage certainly declined with rapidity after World War II and both it and bachelor have effectively been replaced with the gender-neutral single although in English common-law, the older forms lasted until 2005.

There's another quirk.  Middle French had the unrelated bachelette (young girl) which persists in the Modern French bachelière but that applies exclusively to students.  In the narrow technical sense, still sometimes insisted upon in British circles, a more proper neologism would be bacheloress, since -ess is the usual English suffix denoting a female subject, while -ette is a French-origin diminutive suffix, traditionally used to describe something smaller in size.  However, bachelorette was invented in the US where the -ette suffix can indicate a feminine version of a noun without implying a change in size.

In these gender-conscious times, the -ess suffix is anyway falling into disuse due to attempts to neutralize professional terms.  Except for historic references, it’s probably now obsolete.

Noted bachelorette Lindsay Lohan.

Spinster

Spinster (pronounced spin-sta (U) or spin-ster (non-U))

(1) A woman still unmarried beyond the usual age (according to the usual social conventions) of marrying.  Except when used historically, spinster has long been thought offensive or at least disparaging.

(2) In law (and still used in some jurisdictions), a woman who has never married.

(3) A person (historically always a woman) whose occupation is the spinning of threads (archaic).

(4) A jocular slang variation of the more common a spin doctor, spin merchant or spin master (one who spins (puts a spin on) a political media story so as to lend a favorable or advantageous appearance.

(5) A woman of evil character who has committed evil deeds, so called from being forced to spin in a house of correction (obsolete).

(6) A spider; an insect (such as a silkworm) which spins thread (a rare, dialectal form).

1325–1375: The construct was spin + -ster.  From the Middle English spynnester & spinnestere (a woman who spins fibre).  The early form combined the Middle English spinnen (spin fibers into thread) with -stere, the Middle English feminine suffix from the Old English -istre, from the Proto-Germanic -istrijon, the feminine agent suffix used as the equivalent of the masculine –ere.  It was used in Middle English also to form nouns of action (meaning "a person who ...") without regard for gender, a use now common in casual adaptations.  Spinster came to be used to describe spinners of both sexes which clearly upset some because by 1640 a double-feminine form had emerged: spinstress (a female spinner) which, 1716 also was being used for "a maiden lady".  Spinster, spinsterishness, spinsterism, spinsterism, spinsterdom, spinstership and spinsterhood are nouns and spinsterish, spinsterly, spinsterlike & spinsteresque are adjectives; the noun plural is spinsters.

The unmarried Lindsay Lohan who would probably have been described as a bachelorette, "Heart Truth Red Dress", Fall 2006 fashion show, Olympus Fashion Week, Manhattan, February 2006.

How prevalent the practice actually was is impossible to say because of the paucity of social histories of most classes prior to the modern age but the public attitude was said to be that unmarried women were supposed to occupy themselves with spinning.  This spread to common law through that typically English filter, the class system.  So precisely was the status of the spinster defined that the cut-off point was actually where one’s father sat in the order of precedence, a spinster "the legal designation in England of all unmarried women from a viscount's daughter downward".  Thus a woman’s father had be on the third rung of the peerage to avoid spinsterhood and that meant to avoid the fate the options were either marriage or to secure him an upward notch (from viscount to earl).  The use in English legal documents lasted from the seventeen until well into the twentieth century and, by 1719, had become the standard term for a "woman still unmarried and beyond the usual age at which it was expected".

A metallic wood-boring beetle (left) and a thornback ray (right).

One alternative to spinster which still shows up in the odd literary novel was the Italian zitella (an older unmarried woman).  Zitella was the feminine form of zitello (an older, unmarried man), which was from zito (a young, unmarried man), from the Neapolitan or Sicilian zitu, both probably related to the Vulgar Latin pittitus (small, worthless).  The feminine form of zito was zita (young unmarried woman) and both in southern Italian dialectical use could be used respectively to mean boyfriend & girlfriend and also a type of pasta (correctly a larger, hollow macaroni but as culinary terms they’ve apparently be applied more liberally).  The Italian zitellaggio (zitellaggi the plural) was the state of spinsterhood, the construct being zitella +‎ -aggio.  The suffix -aggio was from the Latin -āticum, probably via the Old Occitan –atge and was used to form nouns indicating an action or result related to the root verb.  Pleasingly, Zitella is a genus of metallic, wood-boring beetles in the family Buprestidae, containing four species and commonly known as jewel beetles or metallic wood-boring beetles.  Quite why the name was chosen isn’t immediately obvious but it’s not uncommon for genera and species to be named after an individual or a place associated with the discovery.  It’s therefore wholly speculative to suggest a link between an entomologist’s girlfriend and a wood-boring beetle.  Still, even that connection might be preferred to the archaic English form "thornback" (a woman over a certain age (quoted variously as 26 or 30 and thus similar in construction to the modern Chinese Sheng nu (剩女; shèngnǚ) (leftover women) who has never married and in the eighteenth century a thornback was thought "older than a spinster").

The slang “old maid”, referring to either to a spinster of a certain age or one who, although younger, behaves in a similar way (the implication being negative qualities such as fussiness or undesirability) is from the 1520s and the card game of that name is attested by 1831 (though it may now be thought a microaggression).  Bachelorette or the gender-neutral forms “unmarried” or “single” tend now to be preferred.  Spinster is a noun, spinsterish an adjective and spinsterishly an adverb but the most commonly used derived forms were probably the noun spinsterhood and the adjective spinsterlike.  The noun plural is spinsters.

End of spinsterhood.

On Sunday 28 November, Lindsay Lohan posted on Instagram her notice of engagement to Bader Shammas, then an assistant vice president at financial services company Credit Suisse.  At that point Ms Lohan should have been styled as betrothed which is the state of being engaged; the terms fiancé (or fiancée) also used.  By tradition, engagement rings are worn on the left hand.  Fortunately (for Instagram and other purposes), the ring-finger, partially severed in a nautical accident on the Aegean in 2016 was re-attached with some swift micro-surgery, the digit making a full recovery.  The couple's marriage was announced during 2022. 

Maiden

Maiden (pronounced meyd-n)

(1) A girl or young unmarried woman; a maid (archaic but still in literary and poetic use).

(2) A female virgin (archaic); used also of unmarried young females in the sense of a “bachelorette” (a spinster being “a maiden aunt”).

(3) In horse racing, a horse which has never won a race.

(4) In horse racing, a race open only to maiden horses.

(5) As “clothes maiden”, a northern English dialect form describing a frame on which clothes are hung to dry (a clothes horse).

(6) A machine for washing linen (obsolete).

(7) An instrument resembling the guillotine, once used in Scotland for beheading criminals.

(8) As “maiden name”, a woman’s surname, prior to taking that of her husband upon marriage.

(9) In land management, as virgin soil, virgin forest etc, an area in its natural state; unexploited.

(10) In pre-modern agriculture, the last sheaf of grain harvested, decorated with ribbons and regarded as a talisman (by extension the end of the harvest) (archaic).

(11) In botany, a tree or shrub grown from seed and never pruned.

(12) In cricket, as “maiden over”, for a bowler to complete an over (now six legitimate deliveries) without conceding a run; a “wicket maiden” is an over in which a wicket fell with no runs being scored (thus double-wicket maiden & hat-trick maiden).

(13) Of, relating to, or befitting a girl or unmarried woman (archaic but preserved in phrases such as “her maiden virtues”. “a maiden blush” et al).

(14) Of an unmarried woman, older than a certain age (generally past middle age), often in the form “maiden aunt”.

(15) Something made, tried, appearing etc, for the first time (maiden flight, maiden speech, maiden voyage etc).

(16) In military slang, an untested (or untried in battle) knight, soldier or weapon; a fortress never captured or violated.

Pre-1000: From the Middle English mayden & meiden, from the Old English mæden  & mægden (unmarried woman (usually young); virgin; girl; maidservant), originally a diminutive of mægð or mægeð (virgin, girl; woman, wife), the construct being mægd, mægth or mægeth, from the Proto-West Germanic magaþ, from the Proto-Germanic magaþs & magadin (young womanhood, sexually inexperienced female) (and cognate with the Old Norse mogr (young man), the Old Irish maug & mug (slave), and the Gothic magaths) + -en (the diminutive suffix).  The Proto-Germanic was the source also of the Old Saxon magath, the Old Frisian maged, Old High German magad (virgin, maid), the German Magd (maid, maidservant), the German Mädchen (girl, maid) from Mägdchen (little maid), the feminine variant of the primitive Indo-European root maghu- (“young of either sex; “unmarried person” and the source also of the Old English magu (child, son, male descendant), the Avestan magava- (unmarried) and the Old Irish maug & mug (slave)).  Maiden is a noun & adjective, maidenly is an adjective, maidenship & maidenhood  are nouns and maidenish is an adjective; the noun plural is maidens.

Iron Maiden is a heavy metal band active since 1975, their eponymous album in 1980 the debut release of studio-recorded material.  Their album cover-art has become something of a motif and is widely reproduced in posters, T-shirts and such, their music is said to possess a similar consistency.

In thirteenth century Middle English, “maiden” could be used as a slur to refer to “a man lacking or abstaining from sexual experience” and in Scotland it was the official term for a guillotine-like device used to behead criminals.  In horse racing, a maiden horse is one which has never won a race (although in the mid-eighteen century it was sometimes used of horses which had not previously contested a race.  A maiden race is one restricted to maiden horses (which can be mares, stallions or geldings).  The figurative sense of "new, fresh, untried” (maiden flight, maiden speech, maiden voyage etc) seems first to have been used in the 1550s.  The idea of the maiden name (a woman’s surname, prior to taking that of her husband upon marriage) dates from the 1680s.  The noun maidenhood (state of being a maiden; state of an unmarried female; virginity) was from the Old English mægdenhad while the adjective maidenly (like a maid, becoming to a maid; gentle, modest, reserved) was first documented in the mid 1600s.

Headbanger Lindsay Lohan in Iron Maiden T-shirts.

The term Hiroshima maiden (or A-bomb maiden) was in the 1950s used to refer to the Japanese & Korean women disfigured by the radiation from the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki in August 1945, the term coming into use in 1955 when they were sent to the US for reconstructive plastic surgery.  In Norse mythology, the billow maidens were any of the nine daughters of the sea-god Ran and a skjaldmær (shieldmaiden) was a female virgin who had chosen to fight as a warrior in battle.  In several tales from mythology, an ice maiden was one of the ice people (or people of the ice), a woman from a place of snow and ice (in popular culture, the idea was borrowed in fantasy writing.  In idiomatic use, an ice maiden (also ice princess or ice queen) is a beautiful but cold (heartless) woman.  In Westminster parliamentary systems, the maiden speech of a member is their first substantive address to a chamber.  By convention it is (1) uncontroversial and (2) listened to by the house in polite silence although in cases where the member has not followed the convention, there have been some famous interjections.  Maiden ventures by machinery have sometimes become infamous.  Ships have sunk on their maiden voyages including RMS Titanic (1912) and the Wasa (or Vasa), a Swedish warship at the time one of the fastest and most heavily gunned in the world (1628).  In aviation, many aircraft have crashed on their maiden flights (test pilots are truly intrepid types) although it’s a myth that included the Supermarine Spitfire.  Less fortunate was the German industry in the later stages of World War II (1939-1945) when development was being rushed and at least two prototypes are known to have either crashed or suffered severe damage during their maiden test flights including the Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (People's Fighter).  In the case of the He 162 the maiden flight actually ended without incident and it was only a subsequent investigation of the airframe (after another prototype He 162 had crashed) which revealed the adhesive used to bond wooden components was so acidic it caused the timber to disintegrate.

An iron maiden towering above other instruments of torture.

The infamous torture chamber known as the iron maiden is now though to be mythical and an invention of those who wished to characterize the Middle Ages as a time of barbarism and savagery.  It was said to be a solid iron cabinet with a hinged front, large spikes fitted throughout the interior and designed to be large enough to accommodate an adult human.  Once the door was closed, it was said to be impossible to avoid being “spiked” and with every movement, one became “more spiked”.  Although their existence has been disproved, iron maidens (most apparently built in the nineteenth century) are a popular exhibit in “museums of torture”, some probably genuine “torture coffins” to which the spikes were a latter addition.  Quite why it was felt necessary to “invent” the iron maiden given there were so many examples of equally gruesome Medieval torture devices isn’t clear but it may be there was some desire to exonerate the torturers of Antiquity who really did use such things; among post Renaissance historians, such was the veneration for the Classical world that wherever possible, things were blamed on the Middle Ages.

In the English legal system, maiden assize came to mean an assize (periodic courts with on a circuit basis were conducted around England and Wales until 1972,) at which there were no criminal cases to be heard although originally it was an assize at which no prisoner was condemned to die.  There used to be some ritualism attached to the declaration of a maiden assize and the tradition wasn’t unknown in the US:  If a judge, upon opening a session of their assize found there were no cases to be heard, the clerk of the court would present him with a pair of white gloves, the marker of a maiden assize, the significance being that judges, as a mark of submission to the Crown, were always gloveless when executing the royal commission.