bluestocking

[ bloo-stok-ing ]

/ ˈbluˌstɒk ɪŋ /

a woman with considerable scholarly, literary, or intellectual ability or interest.

a member of a mid-18th-century London literary circle: Lady Montagu was a celebrated bluestocking.

Origin of bluestocking

1675–85; so called from the informal attire, especially blue woolen instead of black silk stockings, worn by some women of the group (def 2)

blue·stock·ing·ism, noun

"No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally renounced her former infatuations," he told himself.

War and Peace |Leo Tolstoy
You neither of you seem to take the woman into consideration at all, piped the Bluestocking.

Modern marriage and how to bear it |Maud Churton Braby
This foible led an unusually energetic Boston bluestocking to refer to him in a caustic style on one occasion as “effeminate.”

Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers, Vol. I |Various
Though a Bluestocking, her praise was usually generously bestowed; she knew well how to flatter.

Anna Seward |Stapleton Martin

The don and the bluestocking have to live, so have the cowboy and the cook.

Race Improvement : or, Eugenics : a Little Book on a Great Subject |La Reine Helen Baker

bluestocking

/ (ˈbluːˌstɒkɪŋ) /

usually derogatory a scholarly or intellectual woman

from the blue worsted stockings worn by members of a C18 literary society