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WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT
Imported dictionary evidence
These are source reports, not reviewed *SET-U ancestry. A list of templates or numbered etymologies is not an ancestor chain. Scholarly disagreements remain in the original source text.
35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCALNo exact match for “Spouse” in this partial English subset. That does not mean the full research corpus—or linguistic scholarship—has no record. Check the original dictionary entry ↗
INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
These are spelling matches, not a claim of identical senses or agreement. Historical accounts retain their own editions and limits; none is automatically promoted into reviewed ancestry.
Mayhew–Skeat (1888)
1888; pinned HTML transcription updated October 28, 2024Spouse
No extractable etymology was found for this exact spelling. Open the original dictionary entry ↗
Read the complete entry and references ↗ · Contribute a cited dossier
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
bride
A woman about to be or recently married; inherited from Old English brȳd and directly preserved inside bridegroom.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗husband
A married man in relation to a spouse; borrowed from a Norse compound whose earlier center was householder or master of a house.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗wife
A married woman in relation to a spouse; inherited from Old English wīf, whose historical field included woman more generally.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
Is bride the same historical word as bird?
No. Bosworth-Toller records brȳd, bride or spouse, separately from brid, the young of a bird; the reviewed bride path follows brȳd.
Did husband originally mean only a married man?
No. The earlier center was householder or master of a house; household and spouse senses overlapped before the modern specialization.
Did wife always mean only a female spouse?
No. Old English wīf and Middle English wif could mean woman as well as wife.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 2
A husband was a householder before he was a spouse.
English borrowed Old Norse hūsbōndi, house plus householder; spouse meaning grew from household status.
Only half of bridegroom reaches the earthling root.
Bride continues Old English brȳd and stops at a Germanic comparison horizon; guma, the second compound element, follows the separate earthling branch.
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “spouse.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “spouse.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
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