wife
part of speech
noun (a wife, wives)
meaning for a pupil
1) A wife is the woman a person is married to. tree →
2) (old) In old stories and old phrases, "wife" can mean simply a woman, as in "old wives' tale". tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories and family trees it shows who is married to whom: "husband and wife". In word problems it names family members who share things or work together. Phrases: husband and wife, his wife, ex-wife, old wives' tale (a common belief that is not true).
examples
- Mr Patel's wife is a nurse. tree →
- The farmer and his wife milked the cows. tree →
- They became husband and wife at the wedding. tree →
- My uncle's wife is my aunt. tree →
- The king and his wife waved from the balcony. tree →
- "Cracking your knuckles gives you big hands" is just an old wives' tale. tree →
- A man and his wife share 24 apples equally, so each gets 12. tree →
- His wife drove the kids to footy practice. tree →
- But his wife called after him:-- tree →
note
Irregular plural: one wife, two wives (f changes to v). Possessive: "his wife's car". "Old wives' tale" means a myth, not a story about wives. The partner word is "husband"; "spouse" or "partner" covers either.
In the corpora
- Remarrying means marrying again after a divorce or after a husband or wife has died.
- An older person who finds a new partner after losing a husband or wife has not forgotten the one who died.
- A widow is a woman whose husband has died, and a widower is a man whose wife has died.
- He had a great many wives, and most of them quarrelled all day, which made him miserable.
- Having many wives was a custom of some old kings; today in most countries a person may be married to only one person.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «wife» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.