A damsel is an old-fashioned word for a young, unmarried woman or girl. You'll mostly encounter it in fairy tales, medieval stories, and classic literature rather than everyday conversation.

The word appears most famously in the phrase damsel in distress, describing a woman who needs rescuing. In countless old stories, a damsel gets captured by a dragon or locked in a tower, waiting for a knight to save her. Think of Princess Fiona in the tower in Shrek, though that movie playfully pokes fun at the whole idea.

Knights would speak respectfully of damsels, and poets would write about them. Now it mostly survives in stories set in the past or in jokes about fairy tale clichés. You might read it in books like Ivanhoe or The Princess Bride, but you won't hear people using it at school or in normal conversation.