Word.ws English Dictionary

goodwife

goodwife noun: a female head of a household.

Noun (1)

goodwife (plural goodwives)

  1. (obsolete) A female head of a household.
    • "O my lord the Sultan," said the other [the Wazir], "verily women be weakly of wits, and haply this goodwife cometh hither to complain before thee against her goodman or some of her people."1885–1888, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume (please specify the volume), [London]: […]...
  2. (obsolete) A title of respect for a woman.
    • Goodwife Hopkins
    Synonyms:
    Mrs

Noun (2) capitalized: Goodwife

Goodwife

  1. (obsolete) A title of respect for a woman
    • Goodwife Hopkins
    Synonyms:
    Mrs

Synonyms of goodwife

Forms of goodwife

pluralgoodwives
alternative formGoodwife
alternative formgoodwife

Origin of goodwife

From Middle English goodwyf, godwyf, godwif, equivalent to good + wife.

Words formed from goodwife

Questions about goodwife

What does goodwife mean?
Goodwife means a female head of a household.
What part of speech is goodwife?
Goodwife is a noun.
What is the plural of goodwife?
The plural of goodwife is goodwives.

Words near goodwife in the dictionary

  1. gooducken
  2. gooduckens
  3. goodun
  4. gooduns
  5. Goodwick
  6. goodwife
  7. goodwill
  8. goodwill ambassador
  9. goodwill ambassadors
  10. goodwilled
  11. goodwiller

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: goodwife (page history and authors); Goodwife (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.

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