Modern English → Old English
Old English word for wife
5 headwords match “wife”, ranked by the scoring in the data pipeline. The five strongest follow; wif ranks first.
-
wife — woman
- listed as an English descendant
- has a full inflection table
Paradigm summary nominative singular wīf genitive singular wīfes dative singular wīfe accusative singular wīf nominative plural wīf genitive plural wīfa -
wife — queen (a ruling female monarch or a king's wife)
- appears in the definition
- has a full inflection table
Paradigm summary nominative singular cwēn genitive singular cwēne dative singular cwēne accusative singular cwēn, cwēne nominative plural cwēne, cwēna genitive plural cwēna -
wife — without a wife; wifeless, unmarried
- appears in the definition
- has a full inflection table
Paradigm summary strong nominative singular masculine wīflēas strong nominative singular feminine wīflēas strong nominative singular neuter wīflēas strong accusative singular masculine wīflēasne strong accusative singular feminine wīflēase strong accusative singular neuter wīflēas -
wife — girl, virgin
- has a full inflection table
Paradigm summary nominative singular mæġeþ genitive singular mæġeþ dative singular mæġeþ accusative singular mæġeþ nominative plural mæġeþ genitive plural mæġþa -
wife — legitimate marriage
- has a full inflection table
Paradigm summary nominative singular rihtǣw genitive singular rihtǣw dative singular rihtǣw accusative singular rihtǣw nominative plural rihtǣw genitive plural rihtǣwa
How this ranking works
Scores are computed once, when the site is built, from the Wiktionary data. Every headword whose definitions mention “wife” gets the points below; the candidates are then sorted by total. The score is shown on each entry above so the order can be checked rather than trusted.
| The English word opens the headword's definition | +10 |
| It appears later in the first definition | +6 |
| It appears in any definition | +3 |
| It is in the headword's links | +2 |
| It is listed as an English descendant (etymological evidence) | +9 |
| The headword has an inflection table | +3 |
| Part of speech is a proper noun | −5 |
| Part of speech is a verb (-ian derivations are noisy) | −3 |
| The headword is an alternative form | −6 |
| The first definition is longer than three words | −2 |
A candidate has to be a real headword with its own entry: inflected forms and grammatical terminology (genitive, nominative, preterite, …) never appear here.
Not one of these?
The match may be a different sense of “wife”, or an inflected form rather than a headword. Look up the form directly — the entry page marks the grammatical case.
Candidates derived from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0). Each entry links to its source page. · CC BY-SA 4.0 and attribution · CC BY-SA 4.0