Etymology

housewife

H4O1U1S1E1W4I1F4E1

Today it means: 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. Full definition →

Middle English houswyf
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The story

  1. Middle English · inherited fromhouswyf
  2. English todayhousewife

From Middle English houswyf, housewif, huswijf, equivalent to house + wife; a doublet of hussy, which it was long distinguished from and displaced due to gradual negative connotation (see Online Etymology Dictionary entry). Cognate with West Frisian húswiif, Dutch huiswijf, German Low German Huuswief, German Hausweib.

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishhouswyf all →

hussey

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.