catherinette

plural catherinettes

1. alternativeAlternative form of Catherinette.

   If no marriage had been concluded by the age of twenty-five, the young woman became a "catherinette" and soon a spinster.

   1995, Christa Hämmerle, Plurality and individuality

   3 more examples

   And then again, on 25 November, Saint Catherine's Day (Saint Catherine is of course the patron saint of unmarried women), the done thing was to get hold of a catherinette, an unmarried girl of twenty-five or over, to drag her of to the rue de Cléry, to borrow a stepladder from the bistro opposite the statuse of Saint Catherine (they were quite used to lending it!), and get the girl to climb up and offer the statue a bunch of flowers you'd thoughtfully bought beforehand, giggling the while.

   1980, Robert Doisneau, Photographs, page 16

   Obviously a girl can be a catherinette only once in her lifetime; it's always beautiful and a little sad, like one's first love.

   2009, Ruth Reichl, Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet, →ISBN

   The card thus presents a conundrum: is she a modiste making her way in the world of work through the needle trades, or is she a catherinette, whose principal ambition is to wed?

   2017, Masha Belenky, Kathryn Kleppinger, Anne O’Neil-Henry, French Cultural Studies for the Twenty-First Century, →ISBN, page 121

plural Catherinettes

1. An unmarried woman over the age of 25 who lives in a country that celebrates the festival of Saint Catherine's Day for such women.

   Every Catherinette has received, by the first post, a Valentine card, with midget mob-cap and the pretty, doleful ribbons stuck on.

   1923, The Living Age - Volume 316, page 116

   5 more examples

   Each shop elects a Catherinette, a model or designer or simple seamstress, unmarried and twenty-five years of age. I was the Catherinette of a shop where I worked.

   1929, Collier's - Volume 84, page lxiv

   The queens of the day are the Catherinettes, the unmarried girls who will celebrate their twenty-fifth birthday within the next twelve months.

   1948, Joseph Wechsberg, Sweet and Sour, page 97

   Today Catherinettes still deck the statue of their patron saint in the church of Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle in Paris, where a special Mass for Catherinettes has been said since November 25, 1925.

   1964, Réalités - Issues 158-169, page 10

   For these pitiable spinsters, a Catherinette is arranged; this is a relic, I think, of the old hiring and marriage fairs of the 19th century.

   2004, New Statesman - Volume 133, Issues 4708-4718, page 76

   In addition Catherinettes send each other postcards. The hats worn by the Catherinettes are made by their friends and are traditionally colored either yellow, denoting faith, or green, representing wisdom, and are supposed to be worn all day long in the manner of a crown. In the evening of St. Catherine's Day Catherinettes are treated to a meal, ball, or party by their friends.

   2016, Victoria Williams, Celebrating Life Customs around the World, →ISBN