[f. SPINSTER + -ESS.]
1. A female spinner.
1643. Howell, Twelve Treat. (1661), 206. Spinstresses are become States-women, and every peasan turned politician.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 11. Ovid’s Lydian-Spinstresse, that proud Madam which Pallas, for her Rivalship, transform’d into the Spider.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Odes of Horace, Wks. 1711, IV. 359. Let meaner Souls by Virtue be cajol’d, As the good Grecian Spinstress was of old.
1713. Gentleman Instructed, I. Suppl. p. lv. You are a kind of Mulatoe,… a compound of Gentleman and Spinstress.
1841. Penny Cycl., XX. 139/2. Lady Hamilton … was painted in various characters, as … Sensibility, a Bacchante,… the Spinstress.
2. A maiden lady; a spinster.
1716. in Payne, Eng. Cath. (1889), 11. Gertrude Beveridge,… spinstress.
1821. Scott, Pirate, xii. He actually ventured to salute the withered cheek of the spinstress.
