翻訳と辞書
Words near each other
・ "O" Is for Outlaw
・ "O"-Jung.Ban.Hap.
・ "Ode-to-Napoleon" hexachord
・ "Oh Yeah!" Live
・ "Our Contemporary" regional art exhibition (Leningrad, 1975)
・ "P" Is for Peril
・ "Pimpernel" Smith
・ "Polish death camp" controversy
・ "Pro knigi" ("About books")
・ "Prosopa" Greek Television Awards
・ "Pussy Cats" Starring the Walkmen
・ "Q" Is for Quarry
・ "R" Is for Ricochet
・ "R" The King (2016 film)
・ "Rags" Ragland
・ ! (album)
・ ! (disambiguation)
・ !!
・ !!!
・ !!! (album)
・ !!Destroy-Oh-Boy!!
・ !Action Pact!
・ !Arriba! La Pachanga
・ !Hero
・ !Hero (album)
・ !Kung language
・ !Oka Tokat
・ !PAUS3
・ !T.O.O.H.!
・ !Women Art Revolution


Dictionary Lists
翻訳と辞書 辞書検索 [ 開発暫定版 ]
スポンサード リンク

spinsters : ウィキペディア英語版
Spinster

A spinster is an unmarried woman who is past the usual age for marrying and is considered unlikely to marry.
An 18-year-old single woman would not be considered a spinster in contemporary language, but a single, 40-year-old woman may be considered a spinster. Several dictionaries flag it as a derogatory term. (See Current use and social stigma.) A synonymous, but more pejorative, term is Old Maid. 〔Wordreference.com〕
==Etymology and history==

The ''Online Etymological Dictionary'' says of the word origin and history:

spinster: mid-14c., "female spinner of thread," from M.E. spinnen (see spin) + -stere, feminine suffix. Spinning commonly done by unmarried women, hence the word came to denote "an unmarried woman" in legal documents from 1600s to early 1900s, and by 1719 was being used generically for "woman still unmarried and beyond the usual age for it."

The ''Oxford American Dictionary'' discussion of the word's etymology that "spinster" took on its meaning of a never-married woman in the early 18th century: "Origin late Middle English (in the sense 'woman who spins'): from the verb spin + -ster; in early use the term was appended to names of women to denote their occupation. The current sense dates from the early 18th century."〔
The term originally identified girls and women who spun wool, long before the Industrial Age. In medieval times, this was one of the few livelihoods available to a woman to bring in wages to contribute to the household's income or to live independently of a male wage. "Spinster" also evolved into a legal term to describe an unmarried female, commonly heard in the banns of marriage of the Church of England when the prospective bride is formally described as a "spinster of this parish".
From its start as a word to describe a woman with a specific occupation, ''spinster'' came to indicate a woman or girl of marriageable age or past it who was not married and never had been married, in societies where being married was generally the first social goal for a woman.
''Merriam Webster's Dictionary'' (1913 and 1828) once defined spinster in two main senses: "1. A woman who spins, or whose occupation is to spin. 2. Law: An unmarried or single woman."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913 + 1828) )
By the 19th century, the term evolved to include women who were so finicky that they refused to marry. During that century
middle-class spinsters, as well as their married peers, took ideals of love and marriage very seriously, and ... spinsterhood was indeed often a consequence of their adherence to those ideals. ... They remained unmarried not because of individual shortcomings but because they didn't find the one "who could be all things to the heart".

During that same century, one editorial in the fashion publication ''Peterson's Magazine'' encouraged women to remain choosy in selecting a mate — even at the price of never marrying. The editorial, titled "Honorable Often to Be an Old Maid," advised women: "Marry for a home! Marry to escape the ridicule of being called an old maid? How dare you, then, pervert the most sacred institution of the Almighty, by becoming the wife of a man for whom you can feel no emotions of love, or respect even?"〔

抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)
ウィキペディアで「Spinster」の詳細全文を読む



スポンサード リンク
翻訳と辞書 : 翻訳のためのインターネットリソース

Copyright(C) kotoba.ne.jp 1997-2016. All Rights Reserved.