Merwife

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A mermaid.

Etymology

From Old English merewīf (“water witch, mermaid”), from Proto-West Germanic *mariwīb, from Proto-Germanic *mariwībą (“mermaid, siren”). By surface analysis, mer- + wife. Cognate with Old High German meriwīb.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.