different between wife vs mulier

English

Etymology

From Middle English wif, wiif, wyf, from Old English w?f (“woman, female, lady, wife”), from Proto-Germanic *w?b? (“woman, wife”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *g?wíb?- (“shame, pudenda”) (compare Tocharian A/B kip/kw?pe (“shame, genitals, female pudenda”)). Cognate with Scots wife (“wife”), West Frisian wiif (“wife, woman”), Saterland Frisian Wieuw (“woman, lady, female”), North Frisian wüf (“wife, woman”), Dutch wijf (“woman, female”), Low German Wief (“woman, female”), German Weib (“woman, wife, female”), Danish viv (“woman”), Norwegian viv (“wife, woman, girl”), Swedish viv (“woman”), Faroese vív (“wife, woman”), Icelandic víf (“woman”).

See also woman.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wa?f/
• Rhymes: -a?f

Noun

wife (plural wives)

1. A married woman, especially in relation to her spouse.
   • 1952, P. G. Wodehouse, Big Business, in 'A Few Quick Ones', Everyman, London: 2009, p 127-8.

     All through Reginald's deeply moving performance she had sat breathless, her mind in a whirl and her soul stirred to her very depths. With each low note that he pulled up from the soles of his shoes she could feel the old affection and esteem surging back into her with a whoosh, and long before he had taken his sixth bow she knew ... that it would be madness to try to seek happiness elsewhere, particularly as the wife of a man with large ears and no chin, who looked as if he were about to start in the two-thirty race at Kempton Park.
2. The female of a pair of mated animals.

3. (Scotland) Synonym of woman.

Usage notes

Although mostly used only humorously, wife can be used with the to indicate one's own wife, as in "I'd like to go, but the wife wants me home".

Synonyms

• (married woman): little woman (slang)
• See also Thesaurus:wife

Antonyms

• (married woman): husband, were (noun) (obsolete)

Hypernyms

• better half, life partner, partner, significant other, spouse, wedder

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (waifu)
  • ? English: waifu
• ? Korean: ??? (waipeu)

Translations

See also

• uxorial

Verb

wife

1. (slang, African-American Vernacular, said of men) to marry

Synonyms

• wive

See also

• wife on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Pages starting with “wife”.

References

• Frank Graham (1987) The New Geordie Dictionary, ?ISBN

Anagrams

• fiew

Middle English

Noun

wife

1. Alternative form of wif

Scots

Etymology

From Middle English wif (“woman, wife”), from Old English w?f (“woman”).

Noun

wife (plural wifes)

1. woman
2. wife

Derived terms

English

Etymology

From Latin mulier (“woman”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?mju?.l??/

Noun

mulier (plural muliers)

1. (law, historical) Lawful issue born in wedlock, in distinction from an elder brother born of the same parents before their marriage.
   • 1908, Alfred John Horwood, Luke Owen Pike, Year books of the reign of King Edward the Third: Volume 15

     Or suppose an inquest were taken between us, and it were found that they are muliers, for which reason the voucher stood, and they came and pleaded the same exception to escape from warranting as heirs, then two inquests would be taken […]

2. (obsolete) A woman; a wife or mother.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Blount to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Cowell to this entry?)

Related terms

• muliebrity

Anagrams

• Muriel

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *moljes, of uncertain origin; it has been proposed that it might derive from mollior, comparative of mollis (“soft, tender”), while others propose it might be akin to mulgere and therefore mean “the milk-giver”

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?mu.li.er/, [?m?li?r]
• (Vulgar) IPA^(key): /m??l?.?r/, [m????i??r]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?mu.li.er/, [?mu?li?r]

Noun

mulier f (genitive mulieris); third declension

1. a woman, female

   Synonyms: f?mina, (hapax, mentioning, Old Latin) vira
2. (by extension) a wife

   Synonym: uxor

3. (figuratively) a coward, poltroon
4. (Medieval Latin) a virgin adult

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Usage notes

Nota bene: A mulier was a woman who was married in contrast with a virgo (“unmarried woman of a marriageable age”). Thus, if a noble young girl of age 12 got married, she would be called a mulier even though by today's standards, we would not call a pre-teen girl a "woman".In contrast, if a common young woman of age 19 or 21 was still unmarried, she often was still called a virgo despite being much older than that very young noble girl married right after bleeding for the first time.

Clearly, if an older woman for whatever reason was not married off, she could be called a mulier too, so it is not a term used exclusively for married women.

Derived terms

Descendants

References

• mulier in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• mulier in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• mulier in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette