maidenhead

• maydenhead (obsolete)

From maiden +‎ -head

maidenhead (countable and uncountable, plural maidenheads)

1. (uncountable) Virginity.
   • 2015, Colin Wilson, A Casebook of Murder:

     Almost immediately afterwards, Scanlan discovered that the marriage was legal; Ellie was his wife. He began to feel that he had paid an exceptionally high price for his maidenhead.

   • 2009, The Milieu and Context of the Wooing Group, page 141:

     The penis imagery becomes apparent: the nails are 'blunt' and 'large', designed to push through the fair skin in body parts (feet, hands) that had earlier been described in erotically-charged language. As if losing his maidenhead, Christ's body 'bursts' when entered, bringing forth a gush of blood that mars his white (womanly) skin.

   • 2004, Yu Jin Ko, Mutability and Division on Shakespeare's Stage, page 70:

     The gender reversals that pervade this play continue mischievously in the man's maidenhead being the undisclosed secret.

   • 1977, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Penguin Classics, p. 363:

     My lord, […] / I brought you nothing else it may be said / But faith and nakedness and maidenhead.

   • 1760, The Miscellaneous, Works, Containing All His Original Poems, Tales and Translations, page 367:

     Gallants, a bashful poet bids me say,
     He's come to lose his maidenhead to-day.
     Be not too fierce; for he's but green of age,
     And ne'er, till now, debauch'd upon the stage.

   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act I scene i:

     Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.

2. (anatomy) The hymen.

• (virginity) maidhood, maidenhood

• maidenliness