mǣden

Old English mǣden meant a young woman, a girl, or a virgin — related to Old High German magadin and Gothic magaþs. The word was standard in Old English for an unmarried young woman, without strong positive or negative connotations — it was simply the state of being young and female. By Middle English, maiden had acquired the specific connotations of purity and virginity that have made it a poetic rather than everyday word.

Maiden absorbed connotations of purity partly through Christian theology's emphasis on virginity as a spiritual virtue. The Virgin Mary as a maiden, maidenhood as a state of innocence — these religious associations elevated the word toward the ceremonial and the ideal. By the 16th century, maiden was more literary than colloquial.

The word survived most strongly in compound forms. A maiden speech is a politician's first speech in Parliament — someone new and untested speaking for the first time. A maiden voyage is a ship's first journey. A maiden over in cricket is an over in which no runs are scored. In each compound, maiden means first, pure, untested — preserving the original sense of an uninitiated young person.

Iron Maiden — the medieval torture device — made the word famous in a completely different register. The device's name is itself an example of linguistic extension: the spiked iron cabinet resembled, someone decided, a maiden (possibly referring to a specific female instrument of execution, or to the device's apparent humanoid form). The heavy metal band named after it took maiden into yet another territory.