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WORD → PARENT → PARENT → UNKNOWNGO TO
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START / NODE 864Present-Day Englishbefore the 12th century–today
wife
A married woman in relation to a spouse; inherited from Old English wīf, whose historical field included woman more generally.
“Wife did not always mean only a female spouse. Old English wīf also meant woman, and its deeper ancestry remains uncertain.”OPEN COMPLETE WORD DOSSIER ↗
EVERY REVIEWED PARENT, NOT ONE EDITORIAL PATH
FOLLOW EVERY BRANCH.
Compound components and competing routes stay separate. Every arrow retains its sound change, semantic change, scholar, confidence, and exact sources.
01
PARENT ROUTES1 REVIEWED RELATIONSHIP
Present-Day Englishwife
married woman in relation to a spouse
↑GO DEEPER
Middle English · Middle Englishwifwoman; wife
- SOUND CHANGE
- Middle English wif develops into modern wife with the Great Vowel Shift and final silent-e spelling.
- SEMANTIC CHANGE
- The older woman-or-wife field narrows toward the spouse sense.
- SCHOLAR
- Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
- CONFIDENCE
- established
- CHRONOLOGY
- Recorded before the twelfth century in English.
2 CITATIONSWife — Definition and Word HistoryEtymology and First Known Use Wife — American Heritage DictionaryHeadword etymology AUDIT CANONICAL EDGE 866 ↗
Publishes Middle English wif, Old English wīf, and the pre-twelfth-century horizon.
ORIGINAL ↗Independently confirms the inherited English route.
ORIGINAL ↗THE ASTERISK IS A PROMISE
RECONSTRUCTION IS
NOT INSCRIPTION.
Crossing into a starred form changes the evidence class. The interface marks that crossing, preserves confidence, and never manufactures the next root to make the picture look complete.