People sometimes refer to an old or middle-aged woman as an old maid when she has never married and they think that it is unlikely that she ever will marry. This word is likely to cause offence, and should not be used.
[disapproval]
Alex is too young to be already thinking of herself as an old maid.
old maid in British English
noun
1.
a woman regarded as unlikely ever to marry; spinster
2. informal
a prim, fastidious, or excessively cautious person
3.
a card game using a pack from which one card has been removed, in which players try to avoid holding the unpaired card at the end of the game
Derived forms
old-maidish (ˌold-ˈmaidish)
adjective
old maid in American English
1.
a woman, esp. an older woman, who has never married; spinster
a mild term of contempt
2.
a prim, prudish, fussy person
3.
a simple card game played with a deck containing one card with no match, the loser being the player left with that card after all the others have been paired
Derived forms
oldmaidish (ˌoldˈmaidish)
adjective
Examples of 'old maid' in a sentence
old maid
If anybody had told me you would have lived and died an old maid then, I should have laughed in their faces.