Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An unmarried girl or woman.
  • noun A woman or girl who is a virgin.
  • noun A machine resembling the guillotine, used in Scotland in the 1500s and 1600s to behead criminals.
  • noun A racehorse that has never won a race.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or befitting a maiden.
  • adjective Being an unmarried girl or woman.
  • adjective Being a racehorse that has never won a race.
  • adjective First or earliest.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To act or speak in a maidenly manner; behave modestly or demurely.
  • noun A maid, in any sense of that word. See maid.
  • noun An animal or a thing that is young, new, inexperienced, untried, or untaken.
  • noun The last handful of corn cut down by the reapers on a farm. It is dressed up with ribbons.
  • noun A wisp of straw put into a hoop of iron, used by a blacksmith in watering his fire.
  • noun An instrument of capital punishment formerly used.
  • noun A mallet for beating linen, used in washing.
  • Being a maid; belonging to the class of maids or virgins.
  • Of or pertaining to a maid or to maids: as, maiden charms.
  • Like a maid in any respect; virginal; chaste.
  • Young; fresh; new; hitherto untried or unused; unsullied; unstained.
  • noun A frame on which clothes are dried.
  • noun plural See mingles.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To act coyly like a maiden; -- with it as an indefinite object.
  • transitive verb the smaller quaking grass.
  • transitive verb See Ginkgo.
  • noun An unmarried woman; a girl or woman who has not experienced sexual intercourse; a virgin; a maid.
  • noun obsolete A female servant.
  • noun An instrument resembling the guillotine, formerly used in Scotland for beheading criminals.
  • noun A machine for washing linen.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to a maiden, or to maidens; suitable to, or characteristic of, a virgin.
  • adjective Never having been married; not having had sexual intercourse; virgin; -- said usually of the woman, but sometimes of the man.
  • adjective Fresh; innocent; unpolluted; pure; hitherto unused.
  • adjective Used of a fortress, signifying that it has never been captured, or violated.
  • adjective (Eng. Law) an assize which there is no criminal prosecution; an assize which is unpolluted with blood. It was usual, at such an assize, for the sheriff to present the judge with a pair of white gloves.
  • adjective the surname of a woman before her marriage.
  • adjective (Bot.) See under Pink.
  • adjective (Bot.) a West Indian tree (Comocladia integrifolia) with purplish drupes. The sap of the tree is glutinous, and gives a persistent black stain.
  • adjective the first speech made by a person, esp. by a new member in a public body.
  • adjective the tower most capable of resisting an enemy.
  • adjective the first regular service voyage of a ship.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A girl or an unmarried young woman.
  • noun A female virgin.
  • noun now dialectal A man with no experience of sex, especially because of deliberate abstention.
  • noun A maidservant.
  • noun An unmarried woman, especially an older woman.
  • noun A racehorse without any victory ('virgin record').
  • noun historical A Scottish counterpart of the guillotine.
  • noun cricket A maiden over.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English mægden; see maghu- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English mæġden ("maiden, virgin, girl, maid, servant"), diminutive of mæġþ, mæġeþ ("maiden, virgin, girl, woman, wife") via diminutive suffix -en, from Proto-Germanic *magaþiz (“maid, virgin”), from Proto-Indo-European *maghu- (“fellow, bachelor”), equivalent to maid +‎ -en. Cognate with Dutch maagd ("virgin"), Old High German magad ("maiden") (modern German Magd ("virgin")), Old Irish mug ("slave") and Albanian mag ("a hare's young, hinnulus").

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Examples

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  • Cricket jargon - 1. an over from which no runs are scored; 2. the first, eg. a maiden century.

    November 30, 2007

  • One aspect of the triple goddess in Wicca

    See also mother and crone

    February 17, 2008

  • "The last handful of corn cut down by the reapers on a farm. It is dressed up with ribbons.

    A wisp of straw put into a hoop of iron, used by a blacksmith in watering his fire."

    --Cent. Dict.

    September 6, 2012