maiden aunt
1
7.2
- noun
- /ˈmeɪdən ɔnt/
- Archaic
:
tía soltera
- My sister plans to move in with her maiden aunt, who has never married and lives alone in the countryside.
- maiden aunt used to say
- two maiden aunts
Examples
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We just published a collection of fiction involving quilts, and we saw that pattern in the fiction: for example, the maiden aunt who had always been in the corner with nobody paying any attention to her, and then she made a beautiful quilt, and everybody realized that she did have something important to contribute, that she was someone able to do important things.
Fiction book (1994) -
The idea of a woman alone made me think of my two divorced aunts from one side of the family and one maiden aunt from the other, women I saw at holidays and family events when I was a girl.
Fiction book (2000) -
If I could just save a few dollars, I could visit my maiden aunt in Washington.
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It was his last wish that you go and live with your maiden aunt.
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He also took care of my mean old grandmother and my shy maiden aunt, Chloe, who lived with her; he visited them nearly every day.
Fiction book (1997) -
"The best estates are somebody's maiden aunt who never married and lived to be 99," Nevils said.
Blog text (12) -
This concerns de Mille's maiden aunt, a kindly Victorian lady whose pathetic naivete about love and sex actually leads to her death, just as young Agnes herself is enjoying the adventure of her first love affair.
Academic text (1994) -
We acquired rich uncles in Baltimore, Maine, and Saudi Arabia, frail cousins with fatal diseases, and maiden aunts with museums for namesakes.
Fiction book (1999) -
I owed my good fortune to the demise of an elderly and well-off maiden aunt in Crescent City: Denise K. Sinkel, formerly of the Massachusetts Sinkels.
Fiction book (2002) -
After her parents divorced, she found comfort living with her maiden aunt, who always supported her dreams.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'an aunt who has never married' is directly compositional from 'maiden' (unmarried) modifying 'aunt', so a learner who knows both constituent words can derive the sense. Although 'maiden' is somewhat literary/archaic in modern English, the adjectival formation and concept are cross-linguistically common, supporting transparent interpretation for a B1 learner familiar with the constituents.
Etymology
Maiden aunt uses maiden for an unmarried woman and aunt for a parent's sister, so it creates the image of an aunt who stayed single and often lived with the family. That's why it means 'an aunt who has never married'.