- Porch witch
- Hearth mistress
- Parish foot-maid
- Alms-eyes
- The friendless chambermaid
- The Self-Known
- An unsauced woman
- Fjordhearts
- A frostling
- Penelope’s sisters
- Bansless
- A girl with unbelled ears
- Cloister-hearted
- Veranda maiden
- The Celebrated Celibate
- A Danish lover
- Fruitless gardeners
- St. Catherine’s lady
- Chaste-hasteners
- A twilight colleague
- Fisher Queen
- Bonnetface
- Katie Cloisterneck
- Morgana’s companions
- Hallway dowager
- Breechers
- Snow-spoused
- Disallianced
- Paradise’s gatekeepers
- Aphroditeless
- Hecate’s handmaidens
- Highway nobility
[Image via]
Unyielding introvert
She-who-need-never-share-her-cookies
Space (to spread out) witch
Netflix mistress
“Netflix and chill” gives that a very different connotation.
Code words for lesbian throughout history:
Spinster
See also: http://the-toast.net/2015/02/24/code-words-lesbia…
That Suspiciously Happy Woman Over Yonder
Code words for weatherproof, indoor/outdoor lesbians:
Patio crone
Deck wench
Vestibule broad
Terrace damsel
Fire escape chick
Vestibule Broad is tremendous.
Ranch-at-heart
just boston-marry me, bonnetface
FROSTLING. YES.
So many of these would make awesome band names. The Fjordhearts, opening tonight for the Hallway Dowagers!
Personally, I think their quality really decreased after the release of their second album, Fisher Queen.
I don’t know what I want to be more: frostling, twilight colleague or chaste-hastener.
Were termagants also spinsters on account of their, uh, termagant-itude/ness/osity? Or did my brain make that up?
oh my gosh what is this amazing new word
thank you thank you thank you
Just wait until you see the etymology of it.
+1 on the etymology as ScriptioPlena says. Glad to have shared some word joy, it’s one of my favourite words and should probably be a part of the vision statement for Misandry Inc. (were there ever to be such a thing). “Be ye termagants, be ye proud, may the men cower under the force of your disparagement!”,
Every time I come across the word I keep expecting a termagant to be a type of seabird. I know it isn’t by now. But that doesn’t stop the association at all.
Same here. (Maybe because of terns?)
I think I can happily blame a wide range of things on terns.
Those bastards!
Also just remembered about “ptarmigans”, which also sound pretty similar.
There is a kids’ book called Beyond the Deepwoods which includes a section where the main character is kept as a pet by a girl who is one of a species called the Termagant Trogs. It strikes me now as wildly misogynistic: they’re a matriarchal species, and the females are pretty and silly and girly as children (like the one who adopts the protagonist) and then have this ‘maturing ceremony’ where they grow huge and ugly and KILL ALL MEN. However, I read that section a lot and never bothered rereading the rest of the book because I really liked the idea of keeping a boy as a pet – as I recall he had a collar and leash in the illustrations. Anyway, didn’t know until years later that ‘termagant’ is an actual word rather than a made up fantasy thing.
Made up or not, these make me feel approximately 817.4% more awesome.
“Spinster” is itself a code word, of course, considering what it actually means. [/dork]
> Snow-spoused
Yes, I’m alone–but I’m alone and free!
Disney spinster of my heart.
*Odd woman
*Redundant woman
*(These are sadly real)
The getting really sick of explaining that yes, I did come alone and no I don’t think that’s particularly noteworthy
“A girl with unbelled ears” is especially wonderful and the capitalization in “The Self-Known” is genius, and snarky and so….
Happily and without reservation adopting the title of frostling forthwith.
Virago has its appeal.
OK Parish foot-maid is DEFINITELY not a term for spinster. Or a maid.
How about a crude cormorant? You get the best of both worlds: majestic beauty and grace of a bird and a killer goth look in all-black. They’re also commonly referred to as shags, which I find hilarious. I don’t know. I just have lots of feelings about birds. Love.
I’m a spinister; the sinister spinster with lovers that are never over 23 years old.
Spinister! Check with your local hedgewitch to see if it’s the role for you!
Mildly off topic. But.
A grouchy old man is a curmudgeon.
What is the feminine, or at least female, equivalent?
Curmudgene.
Obviously. #classy
I would say either a scold or a termagant, but I am just guessing.
How about a scarlet-breasted grumbler?
Redundant women
SNOW-SPOUSED
Be thou snow-spous’d, black of heart,
Free and fleet of tongue and foot,
I’ll temper you and tame you — what!
Ill-tempered vextress, have me as thine head.
I just made that up so don’t go looking in Bartlett’s. Making stuff up is what happens when genius gets poured in my ears or eyes, and this list is genius. I like “vextress” though.
Spinster” is itself a code word…
Extra Woman