Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A married woman who manages the household as her main occupation and whose spouse usually earns the family income.
  • noun A small container for needles, thread, and other sewing equipment.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The mistress of a family; the wife of a householder; a female manager of domestic affairs.
  • To manage like a housewife, or with skill and thrift; economize.
  • noun A case for pins, needles, thread, scissors, etc.: same as hussy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The wife of a householder; the mistress of a family; the female head of a household.
  • noun A little case or bag for materials used in sewing, and for other articles of female work; -- called also hussy.
  • noun rare A hussy.
  • noun a ditty-bag.
  • transitive verb To manage with skill and economy, as a housewife or other female manager; to economize.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The wife of a householder; the mistress of a family; the female head of a household.
  • noun A little case or bag for materials used in sewing, and for other articles of female work; – called also hussy.
  • verb Alternative form of housewive.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a wife who manages a household while her husband earns the family income

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English houswif : hous, house; see house + wif, wife; see wife.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

house +‎ wife

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word housewife.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • it's also a cookie

    April 28, 2009

  • I'll stick with the Volim Te.

    April 28, 2009

  • Are you voting (Slovene) or loving (Serbo-Bosno-Croatian), Bil?

    April 29, 2009

  • I'm handing out chocolate. It's what bilbies do!

    April 29, 2009

  • That's sweet. We love you, too, Bilby. And in Slovenia we would vote for you.

    *relieved that the chocolate is being handed out and not, um, dispensed.*

    April 29, 2009

  • Usually /ˈhʌzɪf/ for “a small container for needles, thread, and other sewing equipment.” (Sources: Heritage and Random House.)

    September 22, 2010

  • Cool, Telofy. Check out the Century Dictionary definition for hussy, too.

    September 22, 2010

  • Cool, ruzuzu. As a special treat it contained quean. Oh, my spell checker doesn’t know it. ^^

    September 22, 2010