Wife Definition: Interesting Facts and Explanations

To define a “wife” learn how to use this word properly, as native speakers do. Take a look at the examples below and try to come up with something own.

Discover what other ways of referring to this word are. Expand your vocabulary, thus reinforcing your language skills and making your English more fluent and flexible depending on contexts and what you are explaining.

Related nouns: family husband children mother

Synonyms (contextual): spouse partner better half wifey

Common collocations: loving wife devoted wife former wife ex-wife future wife

Learn how to say “wife” in combination with other parts of speech like verbs, nouns and adjectives. This knowledge will help with building collocations to provide various information in sentences that you create.

With adjectives: beautiful wife faithful wife supportive wife

With verbs: love a wife support a wife introduce a wife surprise a wife

With nouns (noun + noun): wife role wife status wife duties

The meaning of “wife” is quite straightforward, but there are lots of different phrases where this word refers to other details. Look at some of them below and remember!

• Happy wife, happy life — a saying suggesting that a harmonious marriage depends largely on a wife’s happiness.

  He never forgot anniversaries — happy wife, happy life, as he liked to say.

• Old wives’ tale — a traditional belief or piece of advice passed down through generations that is often unproven or false.

  The idea that you catch a cold from being outside in winter is just an old wives’ tale.

• Take someone to wife — a formal expression meaning to marry a woman.

  After years of travel, Tom decided it was time to take someone to wife.

• All the world and his wife — an idiom meaning a very large number of people, especially more than expected.

  The café was packed! All the world and his wife seemed to be there.

• A good husband makes a good wife — this proverb suggests that mutual respect and support in marriage shape positive behavior and atmosphere.

  Their balanced marriage reflected the truth that a good husband makes a good wife.

Test your knowledge of this word and all the connected phrases to see how well you operate all the vocabulary and whether you understand everything.

Discover how to spell “wife” in different languages. Learn about its pronunciation in French, German and Spanish.

Get the historical background of this word through these interesting details and show how our society, relationships and traditions were shaped.

• The word “wife” originally just meant woman.

  In the time of Old English, the word wif could be used for any female, not just for a married one. But, after several centuries, the meaning became so strict that it was used to denote only a woman who is married.

• The average marriage age keeps rising.

  In the year 1960, the average woman in Europe and the United States got married when she was 20 years old. The current average, however, is close to 28. Almost all developed countries are experiencing the same trends with the increasing education and career opportunities.

• Some languages have no word for “wife.”

  Some cultures are similar to Old English in that they have a single term for both wife and woman. Depending on the context, it is up to the listener to decide whether what is being said refers to a married woman particularly or to the female gender as a whole.

• Modern equality and partnership.

  Present-day marriages are putting more and more importance on equality, common goals and mutual admiration. Wives frequently juggle their jobs and home life along with their partners. This change is a sign of the evolving perception of a couple’s relationship in modern times.

Read these quotations by different famous people and see if they are correct in terms of what they said. Share your thoughts on this with your family and friends!