Definition of "bluestocking"

Many of her ladyship’s letters were the most whimsical rhodomontades that ever blue-stocking penned.

1844 August, Fitz-Boodle [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], “Barry Provides for His Family and Attains the Height of His Luck”, in “The Luck of Barry Lyndon; A Romance of the Last Century”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume XXX, number CLXXVI, London: G[eorge] W[illiam] Nickisson, page 235, column 1

But Isabel was no blue-stocking; she was full of vivacity and life, and her conversation was sprightly and agreeable, even when turning upon those serious subjects.

1846, George W.M. Reynolds, The Mysteries of London, volume 1, London: George Vickers, page 109

And let none cast in my teeth […] the remark of Hippolytus in Euripides: “I detest a bluestocking. May there never be a woman in my house who knows more than is fitting for a woman to know.”

1896, Maurice Walter Keatinge (tr.), The great didactic of John Amos Comenius, London: Adam and Charles Black, translation of Didactica Magna by John Amos Comenius

“Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it’s very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better. […]”

1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “A Novice”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, page 359

Bragg was a Massachusetts-born bluestocking, a New Woman of the Progressive Era who changed not only the cultural face of Charleston but also the nation's approach to museum education.

2001, Louise Anderson Allen, A Bluestocking in Charleston: The Life and Career of Laura Bragg‎, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press

The artist who created strong, passionate, brilliant heroines turns out to have disapproved of bluestockings and refused to educate his own intelligent daughters.

2003 October 5, Brooke Allan, “The Surveyor of Customs”, in The New York Times‎

But the cultural conflict between these two post-revolutionary styles — between frat guys and feminist bluestockings, Gamergaters and the diversity police, alt-right provocateurs and 'woke' dudebros, the mouthbreathers who poured hate on the all-female 'Ghostbusters' and the tastemakers who pretended it was good — is likely here to stay.

2016 August 14, Ross Douthat, “A Playboy for President”, in The New York Times‎