spinster

There he meets with his chosen mark: Perla Hildegarda Inclán Arnao, a middle-aged spinster from a fallen family of coffee barons whose reserved nature doesn’t jibe with her passionate letters.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026

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

“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

"She's described in the record as a spinster," said Prof English.

From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2024

A tall, heavyset spinster, about forty years old, she always wore a scarf on her head, tied beneath the chin, even during class, and she spoke with a slow, careful Appalachian accent.

From "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Houston

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

He would like to see the two take up the approved life of spinsters.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 14, 2018

Between 1934 and 1939, two "nervous British spinsters" were regular visitors to the opera houses of Germany and Austria.

From BBC ● Jan. 27, 2017

Considered spinsters back East, both Curtis and Stanley married younger men out West.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2015

And yet she could see her two daughters, two spinsters beyond the marriageable age; they were at least twenty-five.

From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan