Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A man joined to another person in marriage; a male spouse.
- noun Chiefly British A manager or steward, as of a household.
- noun Archaic A prudent, thrifty manager.
- transitive verb To use sparingly or economically; conserve.
- transitive verb Archaic To become a husband to.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To manage or administer carefully and frugally; use to the best advantage; economize: as, to
husband one's resources. - To till, as land; cultivate; farm.
- To provide with a husband.
- To engage or act as a husband to; figuratively, to assume the care of or responsibility for; accept as one's own.
- noun The master of a house; the head of a family; a householder.
- noun A man joined in marriage to a woman, who bears the correlative title of wife.
- noun A tiller of the ground; a husbandman.
- noun A manager of property; one who has the care of another's belongings or interests; a steward; an economist.
- noun A polled tree; a pollard: so called in humorous allusion to the traditional bald head of husbands with energetic wives.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To direct and manage with frugality; to use or employ to good purpose and the best advantage; to spend, apply, or use, with economy.
- transitive verb rare To cultivate, as land; to till.
- transitive verb rare To furnish with a husband.
- noun obsolete The male head of a household; one who orders the economy of a family.
- noun obsolete A cultivator; a tiller; a husbandman.
- noun rare One who manages or directs with prudence and economy; a frugal person; an economist.
- noun A married man; a man who has a wife; -- the correlative to
wife . - noun rare The male of a pair of animals.
- noun (Naut.) an agent representing the owners of a ship, who manages its expenses and receipts.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To
manage oradminister carefully and frugally; use to the best advantage;economise . - verb transitive To
conserve . - verb transitive, obsolete To
till ;cultivate ;farm ;nurture . - verb transitive To
provide with a husband. - verb transitive To engage or act as a husband to; assume the care of or
responsibility for; accept as one's own. - noun obsolete The
master of ahouse ; thehead of afamily ; ahouseholder . - noun obsolete A
tiller of theground ; ahusbandman . - noun archaic A
prudent orfrugal manager . - noun A
man in a marriage or marital relationship, especially in relation to his spouse. - noun UK A
manager ofproperty ; one who has the care of another's belongings,owndom , orinterests ; asteward ; aneconomist . - noun Large
cushion with arms meant to support a person in the sitting position. - noun A
polled tree ; apollard .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a married man; a woman's partner in marriage
- verb use cautiously and frugally
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Her husband must have left the house, then -- her _husband?
The Descent of Man and Other Stories Edith Wharton 1899
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She was a wife: her husband awaited her but a few feet away -- her _husband_, and she had never dreamed of marrying again.
His Sombre Rivals Edward Payson Roe 1863
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You may affect not to know him, and may tell him the lady's husband is just come home -- her _husband_!
Old Saint Paul's A Tale of the Plague and the Fire William Harrison Ainsworth 1843
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"keyed" or "timed" much slower than her husband, as is quite often the case, coitus is very liable to be a very one-sided affair, one in which the _husband gets all the satisfaction, and the wife little or_
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The word husband comes from a Latin word that means “house band.”
Become a Better You Joel Osteen 2007
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BTW if a certain husband is reading this ... they do have this shirt in my size!!
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BTW if a certain husband is reading this ... they do have this shirt in my size!!
Archive 2009-04-01 2009
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Smiling at the word husband she drifted off to sleep.
Scarlet Nights Jude Deveraux 2010
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Smiling at the word husband she drifted off to sleep.
Scarlet Nights Jude Deveraux 2010
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Smiling at the word husband she drifted off to sleep.
Scarlet Nights Jude Deveraux 2010
pterodactyl commented on the word husband
Continuing the conversation that has, bewilderingly, popped up over on pterodactyl on the rise...
I really don't like the word husband. It sounds like a Dr. Seuss character.
As Yertle looked out over lands never seen,
He saw thousands of Huzz-Buns, all mottled and green
Wife, by contrast, is airy and pleasant, rather like fife or life. Why couldn't we menfolk have come up with an equally pleasant term for our own married state?
May 7, 2008
bilby commented on the word husband
I'd probably marry the next woman who promised not to call me hubby in this or the subsequent thousand lifetimes.
May 7, 2008
reesetee commented on the word husband
"Hubby" should be banned; I agree.
May 7, 2008
pterodactyl commented on the word husband
I sort of like hubby, actually. I think it's sweet.
May 7, 2008
arcadia commented on the word husband
In my opinion, "hubby" is no good. I would never call my husband that. It's like him calling me his "gal". We prefer "lover".
May 7, 2008
sionnach commented on the word husband
How about 'helpmate'? 'Lover' conjures up images of perpetually mortified children, not to mention jacuzzi scenes on Saturday Night Live.
May 7, 2008
arcadia commented on the word husband
I defer to sionnach; "helpmate" IS better. And I like the biblical tone it lends.
May 8, 2008
bilby commented on the word husband
Do you realise that if you have a biblical helpmate you can never have children the normal way? You have to begat instead.
May 8, 2008
dontcry commented on the word husband
Ouch, ouch!
May 8, 2008
asativum commented on the word husband
Helpmate sounds like helpmeet, which sounds like sweetmeat, which always makes me think of sweetbreads. Blech. I mean, sweetbreads are tasty, cooked right, but not very husbandly. To me.
OK. Sorry. Back to your thread.
May 8, 2008
palooka commented on the word husband
How about "The Man of the House". That has a ring to it.
I actually like hubby - it's familiar, casual & warm. Has a sense of sweet possessiveness to it - he's my hubby.
May 8, 2008
sionnach commented on the word husband
Asativum:
Helpmate is indeed related to helpmeet, as the following etymology shows:
"companion," 1715, a ghost word, altered from helpmeet, from the Biblical translation of L. adjutorium simile sibi (Gen. ii.18) as "an help meet (i.e. fit) for him" (Heb. 'ezer keneghdo), which was already by 1673 being printed as help-meet and mistaken for one word.
Getting from helpmate to sweetbread requires not one, but two, knight's moves. Another example of why I love wordie-members so much.
Pterodactyl:
Don't forget that another rhyme for 'wife' is its Cockney slang version 'trouble and strife'.
May 8, 2008
asativum commented on the word husband
Aha! No doubt sweetmeat will prove to have started life as a playful alternative to helpmeet, and from there it's just a hop, skip and jump to sweetbreads. Told you so.
Thanks, sionnach!
May 8, 2008
mollusque commented on the word husband
Desdemona was propped up, regally, against a beige corduroy cushion known as a husband. The arms of this cushion encircled her.
—Jeffrey Eugenides, 2002, Middlesex, p. 523
August 17, 2008