Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A woman joined to another person in marriage; a female spouse.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To take a wife; marry.
- noun A woman: now only in rural or provincial use, especially in Scotland, and usually with an adjective, or in composition with a noun, implying a woman of humble position: as, old wives' tales; a fish wife.
- noun The mistress of a house; a hostess: called more distinctively the goodwife (correlative to goodman) or the housewīfe.
- noun A woman who is united to a man in the lawful bonds of wedlock; a man's spouse: the correlative of husband.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A woman; an adult female; -- now used in literature only in certain compounds and phrases, as ale
wife , fishwife , goodwife , and the like. - noun The lawful consort of a man; a woman who is united to a man in wedlock; a woman who has a husband; a married woman; -- correlative of
husband . - noun to give or take (a woman) in marriage.
- noun (Law) the equitable right or claim of a married woman to a reasonable and adequate provision, by way of settlement or otherwise, out of her choses in action, or out of any property of hers which is under the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, for the support of herself and her children.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
married woman , especially in relation to her spouse. - noun The
female of a pair ofmated animals .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a married woman; a man's partner in marriage
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Everything will depend on my wife -- [_relishing the word_] my _wife_.
The Big Drum A Comedy in Four Acts Arthur Wing Pinero 1894
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Oh, no! "He is asking the spirit of his wife to go with him when he goes fishing, and make him successful also when he goes hunting, or goes to battle," etc.; his last request being, "_And please don't be angry if I get another wife_!"
Primitive Love and Love-Stories Henry Theophilus Finck 1890
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Far instance, if the claimant be a mother, the affidavit must state that there is living neither wife, child or father of the deceased; if the father, that there is neither wife or child; and if the child, that there is no widowed wife*
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In _Coriolanus_, Shakespeare makes Volumnia the mother, and Virgilia the wife, of Coriolanus; but his _wife_ was Volumnia, and his _mother_
Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook Ebenezer Cobham Brewer 1853
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'Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, and (in a solemn tender faultering tone) I have known what it was to _lose a wife_.
Life of Johnson, Volume 3 1776-1780 James Boswell 1767
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Though she is named after the wife of the founder of the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad (Nathanial Taggart, whose statue still stands in the New York Terminal), her brother once said that she reminded people more of Nat Taggart than of his wife& amp; mdash; a comparison that she has always taken as a compliment.
Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] BrianConway 2009
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Though she is named after the wife of the founder of the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad (Nathanial Taggart, whose statue still stands in the New York Terminal), her brother once said that she reminded people more of Nat Taggart than of his wife& amp; mdash; a comparison that she has always taken as a compliment.
Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] LaxmanGurung 2009
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_Ferondo, having swallowed a certain powder, is entombed for dead and being taken forth of the sepulchre by the abbot, who enjoyeth his wife the while, is put in prison and given to believe that he is in purgatory; after which, being raised up again, he reareth for his own a child begotten of the abbot on his wife_ 169
The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio 1344
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a wife (and no woman not a _wife_, do we believe fully competent to write on this subject), recently met our eyes in the pages of a periodical.
The Wedding Guest 1847
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Unbecoming as they are in a young unmarried female, a much stricter sense of decorum, a vastly different repose and reserve of manner, are absolutely essential in a wife; and it is as a _wife_, Kate, that I am now addressing you. "
Kate Coventry An Autobiography G. J. Whyte-Melville
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Williams self-identifies as a trad wife, which she defines — also in a TikTok video — as "a woman who chooses to live a more traditional life with ultra-traditional gender roles."
'Trad wives' are using social media to romanticize a return to 'traditional values' as more and more women face post-COVID work/life balance burnout Nicole Froio 2022
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This week, I heard Emhoff referred to as a “wife guy”, which made me smile – wife guy being simultaneously a nice term of affection for men who unreservedly support their wives, and also a reminder that no word for a female equivalent can exist.
God knows we need an antidote to all the lousy men in the news – and I think I’ve found one | Emma Brockes Emma Brockes 2024
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