maiden

noun

1. (literary)A girl or an unmarried young woman.
2. (archaic)A female virgin.

   “She's unmarried and still a maiden.”

3. (dialectal, obsolete)A man with no experience of sex, especially because of deliberate abstention.

   “As for that ſaid ſire Bors I wille be ſhryuen with a good wylle / Soo ſyr Bors was confeſſyd / and for al wymmen ſir Bors was a vyrgyne / ſauf for one / that was the doughter of kynge Brangorys / and on her he gat a child that hyghte Elayne / and ſauf for her ſyre Bors was a clene mayden[…]”

4. A maidservant.
5. A clothes maiden.
6. (archaic)An unmarried woman, especially an older woman.
7. A racehorse without any victory, i.e. one having a "virgin record".
8. A horse race in which all starters are maidens.
9. (historical)A Scottish counterpart of the guillotine.

   “It had been customary during the whole civil war, to decapitate state criminals by the instrument called the maiden; but Montrose was condemned to a more ignominious death , by a gibbet thirty feet high”

10. A maiden over.
11. (obsolete)A machine for washing linen.
12. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of Maiden.
13. One of the triune goddesses of the Lady in Wicca alongside the Crone and Mother representing a girl or a young woman

    “[…] different stages of life as represented by our Lady as Maiden, Mother, and Crone, as well as our Lord as Master, Father, and Sage.”

    “The Lady is often thought of as having three aspects: Maiden, Mother, and Crone.”

adj

1. (not-comparable)Virgin.

   “a surprising old maiden lady”

   “It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden sister […]”

2. (not-comparable)Without offspring.
3. (not-comparable)Like or befitting a (young, unmarried) maiden.

   “Haue you no modeſty, no maiden ſhame, / No touch of baſhfulneſſe?”

4. (figuratively, not-comparable)Being a first occurrence or event.

   “1975 was the year when West Indies won their maiden World Cup title.”

   “The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage.”

   “After Edmund Burke's maiden speech, William Pitt the Elder said Burke had "spoken in such a manner as to stop the mouths of all Europe" and that the Commons should congratulate itself on acquiring such a member.”

   “Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado took his maiden victory and Williams's first since 2004 in a strategic battle with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.”

5. (not-comparable)Being an over in which no runs are scored.

   “He bowled a record twelve maiden overs in his spell of 8-33 in 21 overs.”

6. (not-comparable)Fresh; innocent; unpolluted; pure; hitherto unused.

   “Come Brother Iohn, full brauely haſt thou fleſht thy Maiden ſword.”

   “When I am dead, good Wench, / Let me be vs’d with Honor; ſtrew me ouer / With Maiden Flowers, that all the world may know / I was a chaſte Wife, to my Graue: Embalme me, / Then lay me forth (although vnqueen’d) yet like / A Queene, and Daughter to a King enterre me.”

7. (not-comparable)Never having been captured or violated.

   “Victorie forsook him for ever since he ransacked the maiden town of Magdenburg”

   “But every citizen considered his own honor as bound up with the honor of the maiden fortress.”

8. (not-comparable)Grown from seed and never pruned.

name

1. The constellation and zodiacal sign Virgo.

   “"'Tis the simplest thing in the world, sir," said Sheridan. "Virgo, the Maiden, follows Leo, the Lion, in society, as well as in the Zodiac."”

   “In the top left-hand corner was the emblem of the company - a young woman holding up an ear of corn. The stranger had given him the Sign of the Maiden!”

2. A surname.
3. Iron Maiden, a heavy metal band from England.