different between housewifery vs housewife

English

Alternative forms

• housewifry (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English huswyfery, huswyffrye, howswyfry, equivalent to housewife +? -ry.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?ha?sw?f??i/, /?ha?sw?f?i/

Noun

housewifery (usually uncountable, plural housewiferies)

1. The state or activity of being a housewife; household management, domestic skills. [from 15th c.]
   • 1653, Margaret Cavendish, Poems and Fancies, London: J. Martin & J. Allestrye, “To the Reader,”^[1]

     […] I have no Children to imploy my Care, and Attendance on; And my Lords Estate being taken away, had nothing for Huswifery, or thrifty Industry to imploy my selfe in; having no Stock to work on. For Housewifery is a discreet Management, and ordering all in Private, and Household Affaires, seeing nothing spoil’d, or Profusely spent, that every thing has its proper Place, and every Servant his proper Work, and every Work to be done in its proper Time; to be Neat, and Cleanly, to have their House quiet from all disturbing Noise. But Thriftiness is something stricter; for good Housewifery may be used in great Expenses; but Thriftiness signifies a Saving, or a getting; as to increase their Stock, or Estate.

   • 1895, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, Chapter 5,^[2]

     When the schoolmaster got back Sue was making a pretence of doing some housewifery as if she lived there.

   • 1918, Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier, Virago 2014, p. 39:

     ‘How you've forgotten,’ she cried, and ran up to him, rattling her keys and looking grave with housewifery […]

   • 1936, William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! New York: Modern Library, 1951, Chapter 5, p. 156,^[3]

     […] drafted by circumstance at too soon an age into a pinch-penny housewifery which might have existed just as well upon a lighthouse rock […]

2. (obsolete) Household goods. [16th-19th c.]

Synonyms

• housewifeship

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English housewif, houswyf, huswijf, equivalent to house +? wife. Replaced earlier Middle English hussif (Modern English hussy), which is a doublet. Cognate literally with rare German Hausweib.

Pronunciation

Person

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?ha?s.wa?f/

Bag

• IPA^(key): /?h?z?f/

Noun

housewife (plural housewives or housewifes) (see notes below about plurals)

1. (plural "housewives") A woman whose main employment is homemaking, maintaining the upkeep of her home and tending to household affairs; often, such a woman whose sole [unpaid] employment is homemaking.

   Synonym: (archaic) henhussy

   Hypernym: homemaker

   Coordinate term: househusband

   • 2000, Uli Kusch, "Mr. Torture", Helloween, The Dark Ride

2. (plural "housewives") The wife of a householder; the mistress of a family; the female head of a household.
3. (plural "housewifes") A little case or bag for materials used in sewing, and for other articles of female work.

   Synonym: hussy

   • 1828, JT Smith, Nollekens and His Times, Century Hutchinson 1986, p. 246:

     It was a housewife, containing needles, a bodkin, and thread; ‘and, do you know,’ added he, ‘it was the most useful thing she could have given me, for it lasted all the time I was at Rome to mend my clothes with […] .’

   • 1852, Tom Taylor and Charles Reade, Masks and Faces Act II:

     Woffington's housewife, made by herself, homely to the eye, but holds everything in the world

   • 1997, David L. Phillips, A Soldier's Story, MetroBooks, ?ISBN, page 61.

Derived terms

• housewifedom
• housewifeish
• housewifelike
• housewifely
• housewifery
• housewifeship
• housewifization

Translations

Verb

housewife (third-person singular simple present housewifes, present participle housewifing, simple past and past participle housewifed)

1. Alternative form of housewive