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wive

American  
[wahyv] / waɪv /

verb (used without object)

wived, wiving
  1. to take a wife; marry.


verb (used with object)

wived, wiving
  1. to take as wife; marry.

  2. to provide with a wife.

wive British  
/ waɪv /

verb

  1. to marry (a woman)

  2. (tr) to supply with a wife

"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

Etymology

Origin of wive

before 900; Middle English wiven, Old English wīfian, derivative of wīf; see wife


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

The men of Padua, where Fred Graham’s Petruchio has “come to wive it wealthily,” sport brightly hued tights, exaggerated codpieces and lavishly plumed caps.

From New York Times ● May 30, 2015

But when I came, alas! to wive, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,By swaggering could I never thrive, For the rain it raineth every day.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 1, 2013

Nou ich am in clene live, Ne recche ich of childe ne of wive.

From A Literary History of the English People From the Origins to the Renaissance by Jean Jules Jusserand

A prince who might have gone with gods to wive Nor bated them in choice!

From Semiramis and Other Plays Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet by Olive Tilford Dargan

So in The Merchant of Venice, I, ii, 143: "If he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me."

From The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar by Ebenezer Charlton Black

Ono wived by letting husbands go; she mothered her daughter by letting her go.

From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2012

Scoffers at U. S. learning might with a modicum of justice point out that Dr. Carrel is French-born, educated and wived, that Dr. Landsteiner is Austrian-born, educated and wived.

From Time Magazine Archive

From his mother the Evening Post learned their names, and that Soso has twice wived.

From Time Magazine Archive

"This Jacques Colis was to have wived thy daughter?" continued the châtelain, growing more wary as he thought he detected greater evidence of art in the accused.

From The Headsman The Abbaye des Vignerons by James Fenimore Cooper

It is no vulgar nature I have wived.

From Poems — Volume 1 by George Meredith

Fighting, writing, digging, rigging, Hiving, wiving, nursing, versing.

From Time Magazine Archive

Unable to get along on his $150,000 yearly income from a trust fund, Dodge managed to borrow at least $10 million from his mother, Mrs. Anna Thomson Dodge, 99, to bankroll his wining and wiving.

From Time Magazine Archive

In wiving and thriving men should take counsel of all the world.

From Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases With a Copious Index of Principal Words by Thomas Preston

The ancient saying is no heresy;— Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.

From Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations by Various

If wiving went badly with a man,—and it did oftener than not,—then he must do the best he could to keep up appearances and help the tradition of domestic happiness along.

From The Song of the Lark by Willa Sibert Cather

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