Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality of being maidenly; behavior that becomes a maid; modesty; gentleness.

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

  • noun The quality of being maidenly; the behavior that becomes a maid; modesty; gentleness.

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

  • noun The state or condition of being maidenly.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun behavior befitting a young maiden

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

maidenly +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • I do not exactly know why, but it is like you, to me you have the same maidenliness - and the sun is laughing, and the fjord out there is glittering, and existence is beauty!...

    Brenda, My Darling: The Love Letters of Fridtjof Nansen to Brenda Ueland 2012

  • A man of her own class he would not mind, for Connie was gifted from nature with this appearance of demure, submissive maidenliness, and perhaps it was part of her nature.

    Lady Chatterley's Lover 2004

  • She had a revulsion against the whole affair, and almost envied the Guthrie girls their gawky inexperience and crude maidenliness.

    Lady Chatterley's Lover 2004

  • For forty years he had kept all the women of his acquaintance speculating as to his plans; marriageable women especially -- perhaps fifty of them -- had been able in all maidenliness to indicate to him that they might easily be persuaded to share the Pomeroy name and fortune.

    The Heart of Rachael Kathleen Thompson Norris 1923

  • She observed that my eyes were upon her, and in an act of instinctive maidenliness she bore her hand to her throat to draw the draperies together and screen the beauties of her neck from my unwarranted glance, as though her daily gown did not reveal as much and more of them.

    Bardelys the Magnificent; being an account of the strange wooing pursued by the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, marquis of Bardelys... Rafael Sabatini 1912

  • She sat up straight, by force of her instinctive maidenliness, but she kissed him back when he kissed her.

    The Copy-Cat, & Other Stories 1910

  • In good sooth, a young maid is all the better for learning some robuster virtues than maidenliness and not to move the antimacassars; and the robuster virtues require some fresh air and freedom.

    Children's Literature A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes Charles Madison Curry 1906

  • As, on the other hand, Jackanapes (who had a boy's full share of the little beast and the young monkey in his natural composition) was none the worse, at his tender years, for learning some maidenliness, -- so far as maidenliness means decency, pity, unselfishness, and pretty behavior.

    Children's Literature A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes Charles Madison Curry 1906

  • Constance had been there all the time, but of course, though she heard the remembered voice, her maidenliness had not permitted that she should show herself to Mr. Scales.

    The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1899

  • In her close-clinging habit, with her black braids securely pinned, a handful of lilies drooping at her waist, and the whole of her fair young figure invested with a sort of stately maidenliness, she formed a sufficient contrast to Rose, who, perched defiantly upon her wicked little steed, looked every inch a rogue.

    An Algonquin Maiden A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada A. Ethelwyn Wetherald 1898

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