wive
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
-
to take as wife; marry.
-
to provide with a wife.
verb
-
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
"I will not wive the daughter of a man hunted of society, and avoided by all;" he doggedly answered.
From The Headsman The Abbaye des Vignerons by James Fenimore Cooper
And I," said Doubletongue, "should greatly like to wive also, an I could achieve the maiden Mopsy.
From William Shakespeare as he lived. An Historical Tale by Henry Curling
It's hard to wive and thrive both in a year.—Tennyson.
From Pearls of Thought by Maturin Murray Ballou
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
The devil of disappointment and of thwarted desire that had wived him in this carefully appointed hiding-place stood away a little from him and that wizard imagination of his began to weave.
From The Branding Iron by Katharine Newlin Burt
"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
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
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
Looking over at the horizon, which swam in a kind of gold-dust haze below the sinking sun, he smiled thinly to himself at Purdy's ideas of wiving.
From Australia Felix by Henry Handel Richardson
I am like to lose all hope of wiving, if this be the maiden I am to woo.
From Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 by John Roby
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.
