Schoolmarm

Definitions

1. A female teacher, especially one seen to be old-fashioned and extremely severe and strict.
   US, slang
2. Someone who acts like a schoolmarm; a person acting harsh and stern.
   broadly
3. A tree with two or more trunks; a forked tree.

Equivalents

Examples

“The schoolmarm came to an abrupt stop⟳ in her arithmetic quizzing, her face⟳ set⟳ into a pruny scowl that looked to be permanent.”

“I never thought of [my granfather] as "colorful." Matter⟳ of fact, he was an unsavory old coot - not a good influence⟳ for a growing boy by the standards of those times. Mmm, there was something about a young schoolmarm and him in the town my family had lived in, some scandal - "scandal" for those days, I mean⟳ - and I think⟳ that was why we moved.”

“Bernstein, am I a stuffed shirt? Am I a horse-faced hypocrite? Am I a New England school marm?”

“His brother Thomas, impaled upon the "schoolmarm tree," had opened his mouth to cry⟳ but snow⟳ and wind hurled back the words into his throat so that nothing emerges but white froth.”

CEFR level