matronliness

There are a few stray "narrative" details -- the school is near a store "presided over by a matronly woman with a rather forbidding manner" -- but they are false leads: neither the matronliness, nor the forbiddingness, nor even the woman herself is ever mentioned again.

New York Review: The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis 2010

There are a few stray "narrative" details -- the school is near a store "presided over by a matronly woman with a rather forbidding manner" -- but they are false leads: neither the matronliness, nor the forbiddingness, nor even the woman herself is ever mentioned again.

New York Review: The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis 2010

Despite some irresistible liberties taken with hairdos and, of course, passes on accents (is cleaned-up ValleyGirl that hard to suppress?), it was all there with a cruel gleam: the frantic perkiness, the forced obeisance to idiots, the insta-matronliness and smugness that came with marriage.

Sheila Weller: Mad Hopes for the Mad Men Women 2008

She had become so dully habituated to married life that in her full matronliness she was as sexless as an anemic nun.

Babbit 2004

She still managed to keep her air of a great baby, and it went rather sweetly with her obvious matronliness.

Secret Bread F. Tennyson Jesse

It at once takes away her youthfulness and makes her matronly -- and matronliness is fatal to romance.

Woman Her Sex and Love Life William J. Robinson

The scant, brief skirt fore-shortened her; gave her a stork-like appearance; a combination of girlishness and matronliness not pleasing.

Gigolo Edna Ferber 1926

She had become so dully habituated to married life that in her full matronliness she was as sexless as an anemic nun.

Babbitt 1922

She had become so dully habituated to married life that in her full matronliness she was as sexless as an anemic nun.

Chapter 1 1922

She had become so dully habituated to married life that in her full matronliness she was as sexless as an anemic nun.

Babbitt Sinclair Lewis 1918