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maidenhead

nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,895 of 15,258leans written

Maidenhead is a woman's virginity, in old use. Lose her maidenhead, take her maidenhead, guard her maidenhead.

The word is archaic and survives in ballads, older literature and historical fiction. The -head ending is the same as the -hood in womanhood, which is a fossil of an older way of forming such nouns.

Tom Bastin from Reading, UK · CC BY 2.0

Definitions of maidenhead

  1. 1nounmaidenheadA woman's virginity, in old use.C2

    “In the old ballad, the girl's father swears to guard her maidenhead until her wedding day.”

maidenhead is a state.

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *magaþs

  2. Proto-West Germanic

    *magaþ

  3. Old English

    mæġden — girl

  4. Middle English

    mayden

  5. English

    maiden

  6. English, today

    maidenhead

Built from

  • mæġeþ · Old English — girl

From maiden + -head. maiden comes 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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

Related words

the mæġden family

maiden

maidenhead — used about once every 16,706 pages · #12,895 · point at the bar for the others