needle-girl

plural needle-girls · alternative needle girl

1. historicalA girl or young woman who is employed doing sewing and simple embroidery.

   Indeed I soon, found that the poor needle-girl was not the orphan with property.

   1856, Green Peas Picked From the Patch of Invisible Green Esq., page 133

   2 more examples

   Her complexion is pure and warm, though pale, as if from too close confinement; for I have now no doubt that she is a needle-girl.

   1848, Joseph Holt Ingraham, Jennette Alison; Or, The Young Strawberry Girl

   There is the needle-girl, with her helplessness, her nerveless imbecility, her utter ignorance, her dolorous prettiness, her thriftless marriage, her half-starved children dying about her like flies.

   2013, Pierre Coustillas, Collin Partridge, George Gissing: The Critical Heritage, →ISBN, page 143