Meanings
plural wifehoods · alternative wivehood
- uncountableusuallyThe quality or state of being a wife.
1 more example
During the week they spent at Windsor all their necessary furniture was sent in; the more ornamental articles it was decided to leave to the choice of the fair mistress, and, as she had no visits to pay or receive, the occupation it gave Louisa saved her from any mortification she might have felt on sinking at once into the state of happy wifehood.
1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 199 - uncountableusuallyThe character or behaviour that befits a good wife; wifeliness.
That girdle gave the vertue of chast love, / And wivehood true, to all that did it beare […].
1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
Origin
- Old Englishwīfhād“femininity; the female sex”
- Middle Englishwifhode
- Englishwifehood
From Middle English wifhode, wifhod, wifhede, from Old English wīfhād (“femininity; the female sex”), equivalent to wife + -hood.
More words from Middle English, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
wifehood. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wifehood
“wifehood.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wifehood. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “wifehood,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wifehood.
Source: wifehood on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.