British Dictionary definitions for wife-beater

wife-beater

noun

a man who hits his wife

Derived Formswife-beating, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Examples from the Web for wife-beater

Historical Examples

The aspect of Willems as a wife-beater presented to him no interest.
An Outcast of the Islands
Joseph Conrad
The man was a wife-beater when drunk, which he was whenever he had “the price.”
Neighbors
Jacob A. Riis
Not the wife-beater, for afterward he might beg her forgiveness and kiss her.
The Starbucks
Opie Percival Read
How do we know but what that wife-beater loved his wife dearly before marriage, and she did not care for him?
Kenelm Chillingly, Complete
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
For example, the selfishness of a wife-beater is lower than the selfishness of a man who gives up his life for another.
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion

wife-beater

Examples from the Web for wife-beater

Historical Examples

The aspect of Willems as a wife-beater presented to him no interest.

The man was a wife-beater when drunk, which he was whenever he had “the price.”

Not the wife-beater, for afterward he might beg her forgiveness and kiss her.

How do we know but what that wife-beater loved his wife dearly before marriage, and she did not care for him?

For example, the selfishness of a wife-beater is lower than the selfishness of a man who gives up his life for another.