maidenyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[maiden 词源字典]
maiden: [OE] Maiden goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *magadiz ‘young (sexually inexperienced) woman’, which is also the source of German mädchen ‘girl’. Its diminutive form, *magadīnam, passed into Old English as mægden, the antecedent of modern English maiden. Maid is a 12th-century abbreviation.
[maiden etymology, maiden origin, 英语词源]
maiden (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English mægden, mæden "maiden, virgin, girl; maid, servant," diminutive of mægð, mægeð "virgin, girl; woman, wife," from Proto-Germanic *magadinom "young womanhood, sexually inexperienced female" (cognates: Old Saxon magath, Old Frisian maged, Old High German magad "virgin, maid," German Magd "maid, maidservant," German Mädchen "girl, maid," from Mägdchen "little maid"), fem. variant of PIE root *maghu- "youngster of either sex, unmarried person" (cognates: Old English magu "child, son, male descendant," Avestan magava- "unmarried," Old Irish maug "slave").
maiden (adj.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
"virgin, unmarried," c. 1300, from maiden (n.). The figurative sense of "new fresh, first" (as in maiden voyage) is first recorded 1550s. Maiden name is from 1680s.