| 释义 |
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.
c1325Poem times Edw. II (Percy) xliv, He beareth away that seluer And the good wyf beswyketh. 1375Barbour Bruce vii. 248 ‘Perfay’, Quod the gud wif, ‘I sall ȝow say’. c1470Henry Wallace v. 741 The gud wyff said, till [haiff] applessyt him best; ‘Four gentill men is cummyn owt off the west’. a1500Mankind (Brandl 1896) 46/191 Wher þe goode wyff ys mastur, þe goode man may be sory. 1551Robinson 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. 1634Rutherford Lett. (1862) I. 113 Desire the good wife of Barcapple to visit her. 1706Phillips (ed. Kersey), Hostess, the Landlady or good Wife of an Inn or Victualling-House. 1728[see gossiping vbl. n. 1]. 1765T. Hutchinson Hist. Mass. I. v. 436 Good-man and good-wife were common appellations. c1817Hogg Tales & Sk. II. 320 The ambidexterity of the goodwife. 1889Brydall 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.
1508Old City Acc. Bk. in Archaeol. Jrnl. XLIII, William apprentice wt the good wif Sweling. 1597Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, ii. i. 101 Goodwife Keech the Butchers wife. 1607in Kerry St. Lawrence, Reading (1883) 81 Mrs. Bowden..Goodwife Pynke, Mrs. Newport. 1691Case of Exeter Coll. 18 One Goodwife Buckland. 1824Scott Redgauntlet Let. x, ‘Ay, ye might have said in braid Scotland, gudewife’.
fig.1632Massinger & Field Fatal Dowry iii. i, Some curate..in the praise of goodwife honesty, Had read an homily. |