cinderella

plural cinderellas

1. Alternative letter-case form of Cinderella.

plural Cinderellas · alternative cinderella

1. A popular fairy tale embodying a classic folk tale myth-element of unjust oppression and triumphant reward.
2. The main character in this story, a mistreated and impoverished girl.

   All the miniature Cinderellas, Belles, and Ariels who fill the streets every Halloween are essentially paying homage to characters that will slowly and inevitably chip away at their sense of worth in years to come.

   2018, Jen Kim, Love and…: Bad Boys, “The One” & Other Fun Ways to Sabotage Your Relationship, Skyhorse Publishing, →ISBN

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   The girls look like Southern belles or Cinderellas. The prom’s theme is Cinderellian: “Until Midnight.” Little, clear slippers sit on the 30 cloth- and candle-covered tables on the tarp-covered gymnasium floor.

   1988 May 16, Melissa Merlie, “Dancing the night away”, in Chillicothe Gazette, volume 189, number 39, Chillicothe, Ohio, page 1B, column 2

   Womanly duties, as Joan thought of them, were fine for girls who imagined themselves as Cinderellas or Sleeping Beauties, good girls rewarded for menial housework and, in the case of Sleeping Beauty, a passivity so profound it was deaf, dumb, blind, and comatose.

   2014, Kathryn Harrison, Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured, Doubleday, →ISBN

3. rareA female given name originating as a coinage.

plural Cinderellas · alternative cinderella

1. figurativelyby analogyA mistreated and impoverished girl.
2. attributiveSomething rising unexpectedly from obscurity to success, as a Cinderella team.
3. attributiveSomething neglected and denied resources, as a Cinderella service.

   Cinderella State

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   The Cinderella of the present trio is the Freshwater, which is laid up in the winter months, when one or other of her ugly sisters is sufficient to cope with the service.

   1956 February, R. C. Riley, “The Lymington Railway and Isle of Wight Ferry”, in Railway Magazine, page 82

   A very early example of this can be seen in the case of the Midland Main Line (MML). At the start of 1982, this was the Cinderella of the InterCity portfolio but building more High Speed Trains (HSTs) to replace 90mph trainsets was out of the question. During 1982-83, Bleasdale shuffled his HST pack by taking sets from the Eastern and Western Regions and allocated these to the MML.

   2020 January 2, David Clough, “How InterCity came back from the brink”, in RAIL, page 64

   The West of England Line has long been a Cinderella railway. Decades of patch-and-mend underinvestment have resulted in consistently poor performance.

   2026 February 18, Paul Clifton, “West of England Line problems laid bare”, in RAIL, number 1055, page 7

4. attributivecolloquialinformalA procedure or surgery to reshape the feet.

   For Dr. Sadrieh (who was wearing made-to-order Gucci brogues), foot surgery is a fusion of medicine and fairy tale. At his practice, you don’t have a bunionectomy; you have a Cinderella procedure.

   2014 April 22, Laren Stover, “Make Them Fit, Please!”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 14 Sep 2014

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   By the mid-1930s prominent members of society, including the aristocracy, were paying hefty fees for this Cinderella surgery, correcting double chins, reshaping noses and smoothing wrinkles and creases, even having stomach tucks.

   2020, Robert Wainwright, Enid: The Scandalous High-society Life of the Formidable 'Lady Killmore', Allen & Unwin, page 125

5. hobbiesA stamp or stamp-like label issued for purposes other than postal administration, not issued by a central government, or not listed in most general catalogues.
6. derogatoryrareA woman employed to clean, especially to remove ash from stoves and fireplaces.