Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The quality of being maidenly; behavior that becomes a maid; modesty; gentleness.
Wiktionary
- n. The state or condition of being maidenly.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality of being maidenly; the behavior that becomes a maid; modesty; gentleness.
WordNet 3.0
- n. behavior befitting a young maiden
Examples
“I do not exactly know why, but it is like you, to me you have the same maidenliness - and the sun is laughing, and the fjord out there is glittering, and existence is beauty!...”
The Huffington Post: Brenda, My Darling: The Love Letters of Fridtjof Nansen to Brenda Ueland
“She had a revulsion against the whole affair, and almost envied the Guthrie girls their gawky inexperience and crude maidenliness.”
“A man of her own class he would not mind, for Connie was gifted from nature with this appearance of demure, submissive maidenliness, and perhaps it was part of her nature.”
“For forty years he had kept all the women of his acquaintance speculating as to his plans; marriageable women especially -- perhaps fifty of them -- had been able in all maidenliness to indicate to him that they might easily be persuaded to share the Pomeroy name and fortune.”
“She observed that my eyes were upon her, and in an act of instinctive maidenliness she bore her hand to her throat to draw the draperies together and screen the beauties of her neck from my unwarranted glance, as though her daily gown did not reveal as much and more of them.”
“She sat up straight, by force of her instinctive maidenliness, but she kissed him back when he kissed her.”
“As, on the other hand, Jackanapes (who had a boy's full share of the little beast and the young monkey in his natural composition) was none the worse, at his tender years, for learning some maidenliness, -- so far as maidenliness means decency, pity, unselfishness, and pretty behavior.”
Children's Literature A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes
“In good sooth, a young maid is all the better for learning some robuster virtues than maidenliness and not to move the antimacassars; and the robuster virtues require some fresh air and freedom.”
Children's Literature A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes
“Constance had been there all the time, but of course, though she heard the remembered voice, her maidenliness had not permitted that she should show herself to Mr. Scales.”
“In her close-clinging habit, with her black braids securely pinned, a handful of lilies drooping at her waist, and the whole of her fair young figure invested with a sort of stately maidenliness, she formed a sufficient contrast to Rose, who, perched defiantly upon her wicked little steed, looked every inch a rogue.”
An Algonquin Maiden A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada
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