wife: [OE] Wife originally meant simply ‘woman’, but the semantic restriction to ‘married woman’ began in the Old English period and has become more and more firmly established as the centuries have passed. Of the word’s Germanic relatives, German weib has largely been replaced by frau, and Dutch wijf, Swedish vif, and Danish viv are no longer front-line words. It is not known what its ultimate source was. A woman is etymologically a ‘wife-man’, that is, a ‘womanperson’, a ‘female-person’.
wife (n.)
Old English wif (neuter) "woman, female, lady," also, but not especially, "wife," from Proto-Germanic *wiban (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Frisian wif, Old Norse vif, Danish and Swedish viv, Middle Dutch, Dutch wijf, Old High German wib, German Weib), of uncertain origin, not found in Gothic.
Apparently felt as inadequate in its basic sense, leading to the more distinctive formation wifman (source of woman). Dutch wijf now means, in slang, "girl, babe," having softened somewhat from earlier sense of "bitch." German cognate Weib also tends to be slighting or derogatory and has been displaced by Frau.
The more usual Indo-European word is represented in English by queen/quean. Words for "woman" also double for "wife" in some languages. Some proposed PIE roots for wife include *weip- "to twist, turn, wrap," perhaps with sense of "veiled person" (see vibrate); and more recently *ghwibh-, a proposed root meaning "shame," also "pudenda," but the only examples of it would be the Germanic words and Tocharian (a lost IE language of central Asia) kwipe, kip "female pudenda."
The modern sense of "female spouse" began as a specialized sense in Old English; the general sense of "woman" is preserved in midwife, old wives' tale, etc. Middle English sense of "mistress of a household" survives in housewife; and the later restricted sense of "tradeswoman of humble rank" in fishwife. By 1883 as "passive partner in a homosexual couple." Wife-swapping is attested from 1954.
雙語例句
1. Husband and wife are now taxed separately on their incomes.
現(xiàn)在夫妻雙方分別按各自的收入納稅。
來自柯林斯例句
2. He vowed to wreak vengeance on his unfaithful, thieving wife.
他發(fā)誓要報復對自己不忠、愛偷東西的妻子。
來自柯林斯例句
3. His wife wasn't feeling too well and she wanted to go home.
他的妻子感到有些不舒服，想要回家。
來自柯林斯例句
4. His wife Cheryl said she had no worries about his health.
他的妻子謝里爾說她并不擔心他的健康。
來自柯林斯例句
5. He had been invited to sup with a colleague and his wife.