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Is it unreasonable to use such words nowadays or is it now outdated?

It's always a laundry maiden which is the rack from the ceiling with a pulley, and a clothes horse which is the wooden (now plastic) fold out thing on the floor.

Everyone that says otherwise is wrong, stupid, or both.

Glad to have cleared that one up for you all. No need for anymore posts.

Clothes maiden? Winter dyke?? Never in my sheltered Central Scotland life!

I don't know what either are unless you mean ladies or equines!

Oh I see, should have read the replies! I've never heard either of those being used for what I call a clothes airer. You learn something new every day!

I thought he meant gf. When they said horse l thought crikey just someone to ride, bit cold hearted
Me too!

Midlands parents - always called it a clothes horse. Never heard of maiden, but lived in rural North Devon in the 1980s where girls were still frequently called “maids”.

The other bit of my DS's question to housemates that got me was saying 'I am after'.

If I say to DH “what am I after?” because I’m looking for something, the reply is invariably “you’re after the clowns but before the jugglers”.

My friend has one that comes down from the ceiling and calls it a "Sheila". No idea if she made that up though!
I have one of those racks on my laundry ceiling and it's called a Sheila Maid, but I thought that was just the brand name (I call that one the clothes rack) but the stand alone one I call an airer. So maybe the Maid bit comes from Maiden then.

I'm a NE person and I say clothes horse, or clothes dryer