archwife

archwife noun: a big, masculine wife; a dominating woman; virago.

Noun

archwife (plural archwives)

A big, masculine wife; a dominating woman; virago.
- You archwives, strong as camels, take the high
  And overpowering hand against the male.1977, Geoffrey Chaucer, Theodore Morrison, The Portable Chaucer: Revised Edition
- Lady Wallingford had been circulating defamatory libels against Buckingham, leading James to comment that Wallingford was like his father-in-law, 'altogether guided and overruled by an archwife'.2002, Pauline Croft, King James

"To pay homage to the World Harlot, the Mandrake Venus, the Archwife, the Ever-existing, who has been, is, and will be. […]"2003, Stephanie Forward, Dreams, Visions and Realities, page 3:
All the same, Master Kit, it looks like you're in a case of pickles – if her ma's half the archwife the postboy says she is!2008, Georgette Heyer, False Colours, page 191:
Some poor fool might have been saved a lifetime of misery if the archwife had drowned in the ditch after all.2013, Barbara Metzger, Greetings of the Season and Other Stories:

plural	archwives

From Middle English archewyf, arche wif, equivalent to arch- + wife.

What does archwife mean?: Archwife means a big, masculine wife; a dominating woman; virago.
How do you use archwife in a sentence?: "To pay homage to the World Harlot, the Mandrake Venus, the Archwife, the Ever-existing, who has been, is, and will be. […]"
What part of speech is archwife?: Archwife is a noun.
What is the plural of archwife?: The plural of archwife is archwives.

Adapted from Wiktionary: archwife (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “archwife.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/archwife. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.