Definition of "wife"
wife
noun
plural wives
A married woman, especially in relation to her spouse.
Quotations
It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room. Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch was pleasant. The young priests who lived here wore cassocks and birettas; their faces were fine and mild, yet really strong, like the rector's face; and in their intercourse with him and his wife they seemed to be brothers.
1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
All through Reginald's deeply moving performance she had sat breathless, her mind in a whirl and her soul stirred to her very depths. With each low note that he pulled up from the soles of his shoes she could feel the old affection and esteem surging back into her with a whoosh, and long before he had taken his sixth bow she knew ... that it would be madness to try to seek happiness elsewhere, particularly as the wife of a man with large ears and no chin, who looked as if he were about to start in the two-thirty race at Kempton Park.
1952, P. G. Wodehouse, Big Business, in 'A Few Quick Ones', Everyman, London: 2009, p 127-8.
Despite personal schisms and differences in spiritual experience, there is a very coherent theology of Snape shared between the wives. To examine this manifestation of religious fandom, I will first discuss the canon scepticism and anti-Rowling sentiment that helps to contextualise the wider belief in Snape as a character who extends beyond book and film.
2014 March 3, Zoe Alderton, “‘Snapewives’ and ‘Snapeism’: A Fiction-Based Religion within the Harry Potter Fandom”, in Religions, volume 5, number 1, MDPI, pages 219–257
verb
third-person singular simple present wifes, present participle wifing, simple past and past participle wifed