What is a male spinster called?

Answer 1

The noun 'spinster' is a word for a woman who is past a child bearing age but has never married.

The term stems from an era when most females were not educated and if not married became a dependent in the household of a family member. One of the jobs frequently assigned to an adult dependent family member (everyone had to earn their keep) was spinning wool and thread, literally the family spinster.

This may lead you to believe that the opposite of spinster would be bachelor, a male who has never married. That is not correct because an unmarried man of any age is not past an age for (the expectation of) siring children. Due to the gender disparity for most of society at the time the word 'spinster' was commonly used, no corresponding noun for a male was used.

Answer 2

Depends on what you are using the word for.

The term spinster originally identified girls and women who spun wool; and though this job was rare for a male there were occasional young boys or elderly men who would also perform this task. If used as a term for a person who spins wool than spinster would be both male and female. This would be a very archaic use of the word.

In medieval times, this was one of the few livelihoods available to a woman in order to live independently of a male wage.

During the Elizabethan era, spinster came to indicate a woman or girl of marriageable age who was unwilling or unable to marry and was used as a taunt to embarrass a women who had not yet married.

Eventually a spinster became a legal term for an unmarried woman, aged 38 or over.

The term dates back to a time period when it was considered bad for a woman to be unwed at such an old age.

There is no male version for this term in reference to an unmarried man. The closest word would simply be "bachelor".

Historically women have always been pushed towards marriage by society at a younger age than men and thus a women may be labeled a spinster for behavior that avoids marriage, where as a man is not penalized for the same behavior with a change in slang labels.

Answer 3

bachelor