Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Wife

Wife, n.; pl. Wives (#). [OE. wif, AS. wif; akin to OFries. & OS. wif, D. wijf, G. weib, OHG. wīb, Icel. vīf, Dan. viv; and perhaps to Skr. vip excited, agitated, inspired, vip to tremble, L. vibrare to vibrate, E. vibrate. Cf. Tacitus, [" Germania" 8]: Inesse quin etiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant, nec aut consilia earum aspernantur aut responsa neglegunt. Cf. Hussy a jade, Woman.]

1. A woman; an adult female; — now used in literature only in certain compounds and phrases, as alewife, fishwife, goodwife, and the like. " Both men and wives." Piers Plowman.

On the green he saw sitting a wife. Chaucer.

2. The lawful consort of a man; a woman who is united to a man in wedlock; a woman who has a husband; a married woman; — correlative of husband. " The husband of one wife." 1 Tin. iii. 2.

Let every one you . . . so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Eph. v. 33.

To give to wife, To take to wife, to give or take (a woman) in marriage. — Wife's equity (Law), the equitable right or claim of a married woman to a reasonable and adequate provision, by way of settlement or otherwise, out of her choses in action, or out of any property of hers which is under the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, for the support of herself and her children. Burrill.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.