Word.ws English Dictionary

Stepford wife

Stepford wife noun: a woman who unquestioningly submits to and serves her male partner, and/or does not seem to have interests, wishes, or pursuits of her own.

Noun

Stepford wife (plural Stepford wives)

  1. (derogatory) A woman who unquestioningly submits to and serves her male partner, and/or does not seem to have interests, wishes, or pursuits of her own.
    • Parroting back her husband’s words, by the end of the play, Kate sounds either like a brainwashed member of a bizarre religious cult or a Stepford wife, a woman whose personality has been wiped out and replaced by one more acceptable to her husband.1995, Regina Barreca, Perfect Husbands & Other Fairy Tales): Demystifying Marriage, Men, And Romance, page 214
    • "You can't just sit there and tell me you want Lili to become a 'Stepford wife' at your beck and call. […]2005, Mollie Molay, An Engagement of Convenience, page 210

Forms of Stepford wife

pluralStepford wives
alternative formStepford Wife

Origin of Stepford wife

From the 1972 novel The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin (adapted into a 1975 film of the same name), in which a woman moves to the fictional town of Stepford, Connecticut and discovers its eerily docile housewives are android replacements.

Words formed from Stepford wife

Questions about Stepford wife

What does Stepford wife mean?
Stepford wife means a woman who unquestioningly submits to and serves her male partner, and/or does not seem to have interests, wishes, or pursuits of her own.
What part of speech is Stepford wife?
Stepford wife is a noun.
What is the plural of Stepford wife?
The plural of Stepford wife is Stepford wives.

Words near Stepford wife in the dictionary

  1. stepfatherhood
  2. stepfatherly
  3. stepfathers
  4. stepfathers-in-law
  5. Stepford
  6. Stepford wife
  7. Stepford wives
  8. Stepfordesque
  9. Stepfordian
  10. Stepfords
  11. stepfriend

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Stepford wife (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: “Stepford wife.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stepford_wife. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.