wife(n = noun.person) married woman - a married woman; a man's partner in marriage;
is a kind of better half, married person, mate, partner, spouse, adult female, woman
has particulars: battle-ax, battle-axe, crown princess, first lady, golf widow, honest woman, homemaker, housewife, lady of the house, woman of the house, marchioness, matron, mayoress, missis, missus, old lady, sheika, sheikha, signora, trophy wife, ux., uxor, vicereine, viscountess, bathsheba, catherine, catherine of aragon, anne hathaway, hathaway, rachel, rebecca, rebekah, ruth, sarah
Antonym: husband
Derived form adjective wifely₁

1.  A woman; an adult female; -- now used in literature only in certain compounds and phrases, as alewife, fishwife, goodwife, and the like. Piers Plowman. [1913 Webster]
"On the green he saw sitting a wife." [1913 Webster]

2.  The lawful consort of a man; a woman who is united to a man in wedlock; a woman who has a husband; a married woman; -- correlative of husband. 1 Tin. iii. 2. [1913 Webster]
"Let every one you . . . so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband." [1913 Webster]

wife, n. (pl. wives)
1 a married woman esp. in relation to her husband.
2 archaic a woman, esp. an old or uneducated one.
3 (in comb.) a woman engaged in a specified activity (fishwife; housewife; midwife).

Idiom:
have (or take) to wife archaic marry (a woman). wife-swapping colloq. exchanging wives for sexual relations.

Derivative:
wifehood n. wifeless adj. wifelike adj. wifely adj. wifeliness n. wifish adj.

Etymology:
OE wif woman: ult. orig. unkn.

N  woman, she, her, female, petticoat, feminality, muliebrity, womanhood, womankind, the sex, the fair, fair sex, softer sex, weaker vessel, dame, madam, madame, mistress, Mrs, lady, donna belle, matron, dowager, goody, gammer, Frau, frow, Vrouw, rani, good woman, good wife, squaw, wife, matronage, matronhood, bachelor girl, new woman, feminist, suffragette, suffragist, nymph, wench, grisette, girl, sissy, betty, cot betty, cotquean, henhussy, mollycoddle, muff, old woman, hen, bitch, sow, doe, roe, mare, she goat, Nanny goat, tabita, ewe, cow, lioness, tigress, vixen, gynecaeum, estrogen, oestrogen, consanguinity &c, paternity, lesbian, dyke, female, she-, feminine, womanly, ladylike, matronly, maidenly, wifely, womanish, effeminate, unmanly, gynecic, gynaecic, Pron, she, her, hers, ', a perfect woman nobly planned, a lovely lady garmented in white, das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan, earth's noblest thing, a woman perfected, es de vidrio la mujer, she moves a goddess and she looks a queen, the beauty of a lovely woman is like music, varium et mutabile semper femina, woman is the lesser man.

lot's wife, man and wife, pudding wife, trophy wife