Side-wife
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A woman who (among others) has the potential to become one's wife, or who is fulfilling the role of one's wife in addition to one's actual wife; a concubine
"If, however, his wife gave him a handmaiden and he had children by her, he was then barred from taking a side-wife (as a concubine was called)."
Example
More examples"If, however, his wife gave him a handmaiden and he had children by her, he was then barred from taking a side-wife (as a concubine was called)."
Etymology
From side + wife. Compare Dutch bijwijf (“concubine”).
More for "side-wife"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.