a married woman, especially when considered in relation to her partner in marriage.
a woman (archaic or dial., except in idioms).
old wives' tale.
a man's partner in marriage; a married woman
an archaic or dialect word for woman
to marry (a woman)
What is a basic definition of wife? A wife is a married woman. The word wife is often used when a woman’s marital status is important to the current topic. For example, a man might explain to a salesperson that he is looking for a present for his wife, which is a lot more helpful than saying he is buying a gift for “a woman.”The plural of wife is wives. A man who is married is called a husband. A woman whose marital partner has died is called a widow.
What does -wife mean? The combining form -wife is used like a suffix to mean “wife" or, more generally, "woman." It’s used in a variety of terms, especially in reference to professions, but it’s relatively uncommon except for in a few words. The form -wife comes from Old English wīf, meaning “woman.” Wīf was eventually combined with mann, which was then a gender-neutral term for an adult person, to create wīfmann, the source of the modern word woman. Want to know more? Check out our Words That Use entry for -woman. What are variants of -wife?Just as the word wives is used as a plural form of the word wife, the ending -wives is often used as a plural form of -wife, as in midwives.
before 900; Middle English, Old English wīf woman; cognate with Dutch wijf, German Weib, Old Norse vīf
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He gave her a show called “What a Farm Wife Painted” and, the next month, she was on her way to Gimbels and fame.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 11, 2026
CMAT'S debut album, If My Wife New I'd Be Dead, won the Choice Music Prize, while its follow‑up, Crazymad, For Me, earned a Mercury Prize nomination and pushed her even further into the spotlight.
From BBC • Feb. 9, 2026
Wife Maria is expecting their first child any day and he is prepared to drop everything to be with her for the birth.
From Barron's • Jan. 20, 2026
First published in the New Yorker, “The Wife on Ambien” is a fragmentary, oddly compelling riff on marriage.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 24, 2025
Sometimes, however, Serena Joy is out, visiting another Commander’s Wife, a sick one; that’s the only place she could conceivably go, by herself, in the evenings.
From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
