goodwife
(ˈgʊdwaɪf)
Forms: see good and wife. Also goody n.1
[Cf. goodman.]
1. The mistress of a house or other establishment. (Cf. goodman 2.) Now chiefly Sc.
| c 1325 Poem times Edw. II (Percy) xliv, He beareth away that seluer And the good wyf beswyketh. 1375 Barbour Bruce vii. 248 ‘Perfay’, Quod the gud wif, ‘I sall ȝow say’. c 1470 Henry Wallace v. 741 The gud wyff said, till [haiff] applessyt him best; ‘Four gentill men is cummyn owt off the west’. ? a 1500 Mankind (Brandl 1896) 46/191 Wher þe goode wyff ys mastur, þe goode man may be sory. 1551 Robinson tr. More's Utop. ii. (Arb.) 75 Whyche be all under the rule and order of the good man and the good wyfe of the house. 1634 Rutherford Lett. (1862) I. 113 Desire the good wife of Barcapple to visit her. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Hostess, the Landlady or good Wife of an Inn or Victualling-House. 1728 [see gossiping vbl. n. 1]. 1765 T. Hutchinson Hist. Mass. I. v. 436 Good-man and good-wife were common appellations. c 1817 Hogg Tales & Sk. II. 320 The ambidexterity of the goodwife. 1889 Brydall Art in Scot. vii. 131 A good deal of interest was taken in him by the goodwives. |
† 2. Prefixed to surnames (
= Mrs.). Also as a civil form of address.
Obs.| 1508 Old City Acc. Bk. in Archaeol. Jrnl. XLIII, William apprentice w{supt} the good wif Sweling. 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, ii. i. 101 Goodwife Keech the Butchers wife. 1607 in Kerry St. Lawrence, Reading (1883) 81 Mrs. Bowden..Goodwife Pynke, Mrs. Newport. 1691 Case of Exeter Coll. 18 One Goodwife Buckland. 1824 Scott Redgauntlet Let. x, ‘Ay, ye might have said in braid Scotland, gudewife’. |
| fig. 1632 Massinger & Field Fatal Dowry iii. i, Some curate..in the praise of goodwife honesty, Had read an homily. |