Word.ws English Dictionary

housewifery

UK/ˈhaʊswɪf(ə)ɹi/

housewifery noun: the state or activity of being a housewife; household management, domestic skills.

housewifery: the state or activity of being a housewife; household management, domestic skills
Image: Engraving possibly "B. Colese"; text Martha Bradley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

housewifery (usually uncountable, plural housewiferies)

  1. (dated, usually) The state or activity of being a housewife; household management, domestic skills.
    • Meronym: housework
    • "Let housewifery appear: keep close, I thee command."c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, 2.3.60
    Synonyms:
    housewifeship
  2. (obsolete, usually) Synonym of household goods.
    • Holonym: householdry

Examples of housewifery in a sentence

  • When the schoolmaster got back Sue was making a pretence of doing some housewifery as if she lived there.1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, chapter V, in Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […]...
  • "How you've forgotten," she cried, and ran up to him, rattling her keys and looking grave with housewifery, and I was left alone with the dusk and the familiar things.1918 March, Rebecca West [pseudonym; Cicily Isabel Fairfield], chapter II, in The Return of the Soldier, 1st American edition, New York...
  • […] drafted by circumstance at too soon an age into a pinch-penny housewifery which might have existed just as well upon a lighthouse rock […]1936, William Faulkner, chapter 5, in Absalom, Absalom!, New York: Modern Library, published 1951, page 156:

Synonyms of housewifery

Forms of housewifery

pluralhousewiferies
alternative form (obsolete)housewifry
alternative form (obsolete)huswifery
alternative form (archaic)housewivery

Origin of housewifery

From Middle English huswyfery, huswyffrye, howswyfry, equivalent to housewife + -ry.

Questions about housewifery

What does housewifery mean?
Housewifery means the state or activity of being a housewife; household management, domestic skills.
How do you use housewifery in a sentence?
When the schoolmaster got back Sue was making a pretence of doing some housewifery as if she lived there.
What part of speech is housewifery?
Housewifery is a noun.
How do you pronounce housewifery?
Housewifery is pronounced /ˈhaʊswɪf(ə)ɹi/ (UK).
What is the plural of housewifery?
The plural of housewifery is housewiferies.

Words near housewifery in the dictionary

  1. housewifeish
  2. housewifelike
  3. housewifeliness
  4. housewifely
  5. housewiferies
  6. housewifery
  7. housewifes
  8. housewifeship
  9. housewifey
  10. housewifing
  11. housewifish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: housewifery (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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