wive
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
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to take as wife; marry.
-
to provide with a wife.
verb
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to marry (a woman)
-
(tr) to supply with a wife
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
God grant us all to thrive, And for a twelvemonth to be alive, And every bachelor to wive; And many blessings on the head Of our dear Presidential Ted.
From Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910 by Maud Howe Elliott
A man canna wive and thrive the same year.
From The Proverbs of Scotland by Alexander Hislop
Do those of your world never wive it?”
From Moores Fables for the Female Sex by Edward Caldwell Moore
Ono wived by letting husbands go; she mothered her daughter by letting her go.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2012
From his mother the Evening Post learned their names, and that Soso has twice wived.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
Here is Cassio's warm-hearted, yet perfectly disengaged, praise of Desdemona, and sympathy with the “most fortunately” wived Othello;—and yet Cassio is an enthusiastic admirer, almost a worshipper, of Desdemona.
From Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"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
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
Fighting, writing, digging, rigging, Hiving, wiving, nursing, versing.
From Time Magazine Archive
There they go, buying and selling, and sailing, driving, and wiving, and riding, and dancing, and singing, and the rest of it; indeed, they are most practical, business-like, and satisfactory little beings.
From The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc
To the dames of Avignon All the masters go for wiving; To the dames of Avignon— That shall be their shriving!
From A Night in Avignon by Cale Young Rice
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
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.
