housewife

• house-wife (archaic)
• houswife, huswife (both obsolete)

From Middle English houswyf, housewif, huswijf, equivalent to house +‎ wife; a doublet of hussy, which it was long-distinguished with and displaced due to gradual negative connotation (see Online Etymology Dictionary entry). Cognate literally with rare German Hausweib.

Person

• IPA^(key): /ˈhaʊs.waɪf/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (obsolete, dialectal, poetic) IPA^(key): /ˈhʌzwaɪf/, /ˈhʌz(w)ɪf/

Bag

• IPA^(key): /ˈhʌzɪf/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

housewife (plural housewives or housewifes) (see notes below about plurals)

1. (plural "housewives") A woman whose main employment is homemaking, maintaining the upkeep of her home and tending to household affairs; often, such a woman whose sole [unpaid] employment is homemaking.

   Synonym: (archaic) henhussy

   Hypernym: homemaker

   Coordinate term: househusband

   • 2000, Uli Kusch, "Mr. Torture", Helloween, The Dark Ride

     Mr Torture sells pain / To the housewives in Spain / He knows just what they crave / Mr Torture

2. (plural "housewives") The wife of a householder; the mistress of a family; the female head of a household.
3. (plural "housewifes") A little case or bag for materials used in sewing, and for other articles of female work.

   Synonym: hussy

   • 1828, JT Smith, Nollekens and His Times, Century Hutchinson, published 1986, page 246:

     It was a housewife, containing needles, a bodkin, and thread; ‘and, do you know,’ added he, ‘it was the most useful thing she could have given me, for it lasted all the time I was at Rome to mend my clothes with […] .’

   • 1852, Tom Taylor, Charles Reade, Masks and Faces, act II:

     Woffington's housewife, made by herself, homely to the eye, but holds everything in the world

   • 1997, David L. Phillips, A Soldier's Story, MetroBooks, →ISBN, page 61:

     The "soldier's housewife" was a small sewing kit that was carried to make timely repairs to clothing and equipment.

4. (plural "housewives", obsolete) A worthless woman; a hussy.

housewife (third-person singular simple present housewifes, present participle housewifing, simple past and past participle housewifed)

1. Alternative form of housewive
   • 1983 December 10, Jolanta Benal, “The Second Revolution”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 21, page 14:

     Career opportunity […] is the one who never knocks — especially not on the doors of women, who are still hooking, housewifing and hairdressing for their livings.