milkmaidy
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: more milkmaidy
form: most milkmaidy
Etymology: From milkmaid + -y.
Senses: examples: text: Fullness of skirt aids in giving a better effect than narrowness, but even with ful­ness in excess, there is still a certain unfinished, milkmaidy look, wanting both in elegance and aplomb.
ref: 1890 January 17, “A Happy Medium”, in The Brainerd Dispatch, volume 9, number 8, Brainerd, Minn.: Ingersoll & Wieland, page [3], column 1:
text: We are going to have an open-air vaudeville and show off all those talents which make us such a loss to the professional stage, and the dance in the coach house, which boasts a polished floor, if you ever heard of such a luxury, will be on the nickel-a-dance order and as milkmaidy and country-wenchy as we can possibly achieve.
ref: 1914 July 24, Dolly, “A Debutante’s Letter”, in The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif., published 26 July 1914, page 12:
text: So one by one the shops came into being, each exactly like all the others: bow windows divided up in old-fashioned style into many little panes; no Neon lights—“My God! No!” Maurice Bannerman shouted, nearly apoplectic, when some one suggested it—waitresses looking rather milkmaidy; and, above all, quiet.
ref: 1935, Howard Spring, Rachel Rosing, Stretford: Memories, published 2000, →ISBN, page 24:
text: […] the curtains had still not arrived, were still not hanging at our rustic casements. And yet I could envisage them so clearly, the red and white of the neat check, so rustic and milkmaidy—though, admittedly, Jacques saw them more as striped, white and green, a disparity that gave rise to many a sunny discussion, just like the ones newlyweds have, discussions immediately complicated by the views of the children, all of whom were hoping for sprigs of flowers; […]
ref: 1971, Françoise Mallet-Joris [pseudonym; Françoise-Eugenie-Julienne Lilar], translated by Derek Coltman, “Curtains”, in The Paper House, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, →ISBN, page 59:
text: Prettily floral, milkmaidy fabrics and papers for the home.
ref: 1976, Shirley Conran, Superwoman Yearbook: A Home Note Book, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, →ISBN, page 25, column 1:
text: Terri was so lovely in a kind of fresh and clean, milkmaidy way.
ref: 1995, Annette Meyers, chapter 20, in These Bones Were Made for Dancin’: A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 137:
text: She looked adorable, Noel thought, though slightly chilly, in a two-piece run up for her by one of the nursery mothers from some thin, pink pre-war woollen stuff Margaret had managed to find. / ‘Too milkmaidy.’ Grace wasn’t keen on the colour but Noel thought she looked sweet in pink.
ref: 1996, Elizabeth James, Claudia and Amy, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, page 482:
text: And how are you going to dress? In that wicked little black silk camisole that shows a tantalizing hint of cleavage? Or sweetly milkmaidy in that flowery dress that’s about as sexy as Enid Blyton?
ref: 1996, Andrea Young, Wicked in Silk, London: Scarlet, →ISBN, page 214:
text: ‘But it’s history now. By the way,’ she linked her arm through his and began to walk again, ‘I’ve chopped the Trudel.’ / ‘Really? Why?’ / ‘I never liked it. It’s sort of cute. Milkmaidy.’ / ‘But it’s your name.’
ref: 2001, Sarah Harrison, The Grass Memorial, London: Flame, Hodder & Stoughton, published 2002, →ISBN, page 447:
text: Her milkmaidy shoulders are bowed with the pain she feels about Leo and will not discuss with him, however much he asks her.
ref: 2007, Charlotte Mendelson, When We Were Bad, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 28:
text: She was, Sam thought, remarkably pretty, with thick, shining hair, a sweet, open, heart-shaped face, clear, slightly flushed skin and what Sam could see across the short distance to be thickly lashed eyes and full pink lips. Milkmaidy. Healthy. Fresh. She looked, Sam thought fancifully, like someone in a nursery rhyme who ate nothing but cream and lived in some beautiful garden.
ref: 2009, Wendy Holden, Beautiful People, London: Headline Review, →ISBN, page 69:
text: She was small with a milkmaidy face.
ref: 2012, Christina Hopkinson, Just Like Proper Grown-Ups, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 384:
glosses: Resembling or characteristic of a milkmaid.