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.
1nounmaidenheadA woman's virginity, in old use.
“In the old ballad, the girl's father swears to guard her maidenhead until her wedding day.”
maidenhead is a state.
Proto-Germanic
*magaþs
Proto-West Germanic
*magaþ
Old English
mæġden — girl
Middle English
mayden
English
maiden
English, today
maidenhead
Built from
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