Wife Rafael Caro Quintero

The term wife is most commonly applied to a woman in a union sanctioned by law (including religious law), but not to a woman in an informal cohabitation relationship, which may be known as a girlfriend,. Middle english wif, from old english wīf; Akin to old high german wīb wife and probably to tocharian b kwīpe female pudenda

(definition of wife from the cambridge advanced learner's dictionary & thesaurus © cambridge university press) Wife refers to a married woman, often used in the context of marriage and relationships. On the other hand, wive is a verb that means to marry a woman or take a wife.

A combining form of wife, now unproductive, occurring in words that designate traditional roles or occupations of women: Someone's wife is the woman they are married to. He married his wife jane 37 years ago.

There are 15 meanings listed in oed's entry for the noun wife, one of which is labelled obsolete. Jan 20, 2026wife (third-person singular simple present wifes, present participle wifing, simple past and past participle wifed) (colloquial, originally african-american vernacular) to marry (a woman). A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until the marriage is legally dissolved with a divorce judgement.

A combining form of wife, now unproductive, occurring in compound words that in general designate traditional roles or occupations of women: Definition of wife noun in oxford advanced learner's dictionary. Wife meaning, definition, what is wife: