Contextualizebeta

side-wife

noun

Etymology

From side + wife. Compare Dutch bijwijf (“concubine”).

  1. inherited from *wībą✻ — “woman; wife”
  2. inherited from *wīb✻
  3. inherited from wīf — “woman, wife”
  4. inherited from wyf
  5. compounded as side-wife — “side + wife”

Definitions

  1. A woman who (among others) has the potential to become one's wife, or who is fulfilling…

    A woman who (among others) has the potential to become one's wife, or who is fulfilling the role of one's wife in addition to one's actual wife; a concubine

    • If, however, his wife gave him a handmaiden and he had children by her, he was then barred from taking a side-wife (as a concubine was called).
    • She was also a 'sidewife'. Nobody talks about it because she is a rich entrepreneur.
    • A gilly (or sheevin) is a side-wife taken by a man who already has a legal wife.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for side-wife. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA