Are maidens or horses unreasonable words?

[Northernlassie27]

My son has moved to uni from the NW to the NE. He told his housemates he's after a maiden as he doesn't have one. They were perplexed then once he had explained told him he should be looking for a horse instead.
Is it unreasonable to use such words nowadays or is it now outdated?

Ok right it's just a clothes airer as that's what it does. Not a maiden (wtf) or a horse!

clothes 'orse in fact

I say maiden (north west) but have heard people calling them clothes horse...... both are really weird if you think about it!

I've never heard the term maiden for a drying rack! In Scottish tenement flats we often have a pulley (from ceiling).

@haircutsRus

A maiden is what they call a racehorse yet to win its first race.

Well my clothes horse has never won a race so I guess that makes it also a maiden.

Maiden here (NW) also referred to as a horse and an airer.

Horse - also NW to confuse things! Although mates I lived with called it a maiden 🤷‍♀️

I'd say clothes airer; I've heard of clothes horse, but never maiden.
Title bit confusing - especially for anyone that listens to The Archers.

Clothes horse when I was growing up.

Maiden here in Cheshire. A rack hangs from the ceiling.

Maiden is something to do with the mills (somewhere from the depths of my brain) where the younger girls washed the cloth so the maidens hung it out.

Clothes horse (SW) or airer.. I've never heard of maiden in this context.

I'm from the NW and call mine a maiden or clothes horse. My Scottish husband didn't have a clue what I was on about. But I think he called it an airer.

Another NW maiden user.

Maiden dangles from the ceiling. Horse is a floor standing contraption. (west yorkshire)

I thought a maiden was on a pulley from the ceiling and the horse was unfolded on the floor?
Googling brings the same things up for both terms. Learn a new thing every day! Pic 1 maiden, pic 2 horse

I thought this conversation got lost from feminist chat

I would say clothes horse. I've never heard of a clothes maiden.

Pic one Pulley, pic 2 clothes horse, pic 3 maiden

Every day is a school day! I am 58 and until thus thread I had never, ever heard of a clothes maiden. I thought everybody called them a clothes horse. I am originally from East Midlands but have lived in NW for 40 years

Just google airer.

@nokidshere Nah, I have had several variation on your pic 3, as did my mum, and they were all horses

NE here and we call it a clothes horse or an airer. My mum calls it a screen, she's Scottish.

I’d not heard maiden before but I don’t like it, it’s rather sexist a la “hysterical”

Oh and I have heard of them being called a clothes maiden.

nokidshere your third picture is identical to the maiden we had when I was a child growing up in the NW. We had a ceiling pulley too.