# wife

Pronunciation: say "WYF" /waɪf/

## Noun

1. A person's female spouse, or more generally any married woman.
   - Simple: The woman someone is married to, or any woman who is married.
   - _His wife manages the family business while he travels for work._
   - _Several wives attended the ceremony alongside their husbands._
3. The female member of a mated pair of animals.
   - Simple: The female animal in a pair that has mated.
   - _The old swan and his wife returned to the same lake each spring._
   - _Our neighbor's gander hisses at anyone who wanders too close to his wife and goslings._
4. A woman in general, used without any reference to marriage. *(dialectal, Scotland)*
   - Simple: A woman of any age, whether married or not.
   - _In Dundee we were all scared of the wife upstairs who shouted at us for playing football._
   - _The fishermen bought their nets from a sharp-tongued wife down by the docks._

## Verb

2. To marry a woman; to take a woman as one's spouse. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To marry a woman and take her as a partner for life.
   - _His friends could tell he was finally ready to settle down and wife her._
   - _He swore he would never settle down, and then he wifed his college girlfriend._

## Origin

"Wife" comes from Middle English "wyf," from Old English "wīf" ("woman, wife"), going back to Proto-Germanic "*wībą" ("woman, wife"). It has many Germanic relatives, such as Dutch "wijf" and German "Weib." Its deeper origin is unknown, with several disputed suggestions.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/wife (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).