spinster

This image may have been reinforced by a book Augustus wrote about her after her death that painted her as "this crazy spinster lady who lived in Paris".

From BBC ● Feb. 7, 2026

French-American author Lauren Elkin, who writes on art and culture, said a mythology pervaded that she was "this reclusive spinster that never left her house and lived at home with her cat making her paintings".

From BBC ● Feb. 7, 2026

“I’m a geriatric pregnant spinster who puts crystals in her bra,” Helen says in an unusual moment of self-awareness.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 15, 2025

They're living in a rural village together, two spinster women.

From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2023

Without anything being said openly, the fact remained that the daughter had sacrificed her life to care for the mother, and that she had become a spinster for that reason.

From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende

The closest I have found have been eccentric spinsters and ambivalent parents, in a long line from Doris Lessing and DH Lawrence, Barbara Pym and Rachel Cusk.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 25, 2020

"This is the nature of the debate on things this big, like tax reform," Ryan said."You've got pundits and spinsters and all of this spinmeisters out there, you know, confusing the public."

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 14, 2017

For the Lowells, it turns out, are a fascinating bunch: spinsters, ministers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, factory builders, poets, college presidents and soldiers.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 18, 2017

It’s a message that doesn’t exactly allay the anxieties the book claims to be militating against—namely that we spinsters aren’t choosing our fates, we’re just losers in the marriage market.

From Slate ● Apr. 9, 2015

For the greater number of her twenty-nine years, Bibi Haldar suffered from an ailment that baffled family, friends, priests, palmists, spinsters, gem therapists, prophets, and fools.

From "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri