wild woman
wild woman noun: a type of female sprite, strikingly beautiful, with long, flowing hair, that live under hills and mounds. Also the female equivalent of wild man.
Noun
wild woman (plural wild women)
- A type of female sprite, strikingly beautiful, with long, flowing hair, that live under hills and mounds.
- The Wilde Frauen or Wild-women of Germany bear a very strong resemblance to the Elle-maids of Scandinavia. Like them they are beautiful, have fine flowing hair, live within hills, and only appear singly or in the society of each other. They partake of the piety of character we find among the German...1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 33
- It was a popular belief (applied to the Frankish king and gradually distorted) about the union of a wild-woman or mermaid with a christian hero.1882, Jacob Grimm, translated by James Steven Stallybrass, Teutonic Mythology, volume I, London: George Bell and Sons, page 435
Also used as
wild woman is also the female equivalent of wild man.
Forms of wild woman
| plural | wild women |
|---|---|
| alternative form | wildwoman |
| alternative form | wild-woman |
Origin of wild woman
In folklore sense, calque of German wilde frau.
Questions about wild woman
- What does wild woman mean?
- Wild woman means a type of female sprite, strikingly beautiful, with long, flowing hair, that live under hills and mounds.
- What part of speech is wild woman?
- Wild woman is a noun.
- What is the plural of wild woman?
- The plural of wild woman is wild women.
Words near wild woman in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wild woman (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: “wild woman.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wild_woman. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.