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If You're Single And Over 26 There’s A Fabulous Witchy Word For You

Sabrina Faramarzi

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| Last updated 

If You're Single And Over 26 There’s A Fabulous Witchy Word For You

Featured Image Credit: Unsplash

Once upon a time, if you were a woman and over 26 years of age you were considered "over the hill" and called a spinster - an unmarried older woman.

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However, one person recently found out some surprising information about what age exactly a woman can be called a spinster, and what other surprising word nobody uses.

Twitter user Sophia Benoit, 26 from Los Angeles, California, found out that spinster was only actually used for women ages 23-26. After that, they are called a thornback.

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The tweet got over 80k lives in just one day and people are finding the old derogatory term hilarious. Benoit joked that she was going to open a bar under the name for single women where they only play 'rom coms and The Bachelor on TV'.

The word thornback is actually a reference to the sea-skate, a type of fish similar to sting rays but that don't have a spine and live in cold waters instead of warm ones. Clearly not a compliment.

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Although meanings of words differ across the ages, the terms 'spinster' and 'bachelor' were already beginning to be disliked when they were still in official use, according to an article on the BBC. It wasn't until 2005 that the words 'spinster' and 'bachelor' stopped being used on official documents to describe unmarried women or men and was replaced with the term 'single' as part of The Civil Partnership Act.

woman smiling
woman smiling

Typically, women are getting married much later in life than they used to. According to a survey of 3,000 people done by Hitched.co.uk, only 11 percent of brides who got married were aged 18 to 24. The most common age today for women to get married is 33 years old. Definitely thornback territory.

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Although an archaic, sexist and derogatory term for women, it seems that the internet is excited to reclaim it, which is definitely the kind of energy we need in 2019.

Topics: Life News, Sex & Relationships

Sabrina Faramarzi
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