MAIDENLY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does maidenly mean? 

• MAIDENLY (adjective)
  The adjective MAIDENLY has 1 sense:

1. befitting or characteristic of a maiden

  Familiarity information: MAIDENLY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MAIDENLY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Befitting or characteristic of a maiden

Synonyms:

maidenlike; maidenly

Context example:

a maidenly blush

Similar:

feminine (associated with women and not with men)

Derivation:

maiden (an unmarried girl (especially a virgin))

maidenliness (behavior befitting a young maiden)

 Context examples 

Her pity could not be of the common sort, when the man who drew it was so much man as to shock her with maidenly fears and set her mind and pulse thrilling with strange thoughts and feelings.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I could not satisfy myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from him; but I observed that she did so, all the evening.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"I'll try, but it was a very ungentlemanly thing to do, I didn't think you could be so sly and malicious, Laurie," replied Meg, trying to hide her maidenly confusion under a gravely reproachful air.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

But, by these ten finger-bones! it is a passing strange thing to me to think that it was but in the last fall of the leaf that we walked from Lyndhurst together, he so gentle and maidenly, and you, John, like a great red-limbed overgrown moon-calf; and now here you are as sprack a squire and as lusty an archer as ever passed down the highway from Bordeaux, while I am still the same old Samkin Aylward, with never a change, save that I have a few more sins on my soul and a few less crowns in my pouch.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)