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housewife

/ˈhaʊs.waɪf/noun, verb

housewife is a noun meaning “A woman whose main employment is homemaking, maintaining the upkeep of her home and tending to household affairs; often, such a woman whose sole…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-O-U-S-E-W-I-F-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears 2.5 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of housewife is housewives or housewifes.

What does housewife mean?

noun

  1. 1

    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.

  2. 2

    The wife of a householder; the mistress of a family; the female head of a household.

  3. 3

    A little case or bag for materials used in sewing, and for other articles of female work.

  4. 4

    obsoleteA worthless woman; a hussy.

verb

  1. 1

    Alternative form of housewive.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce housewife?

  • /ˈhaʊs.waɪf/
  • /ˈhʌzwaɪf/
  • /ˈhʌz(w)ɪf/

Housewife has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-housewife.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-housewife_(bag).wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of housewife

  • housewives plural
  • housewifes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • housewifing participle, present
  • housewifed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is housewife?

Housewife appears 2.5 times per million words in written English, the 17,122nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Housewife in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchmaîtresse de maison, femme au foyer, mère au foyer, garce (female head of household), trousse de couture, boîte à ouvrage (case for materials used in sewing)
GermanHausfrau (female head of household)
Portuguesedona de casa (female head of household), caixa de costura (case for materials used in sewing)
Spanishama de casa, mujer de su casa, mujer de gobierno (disused) (female head of household)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does housewife come from?

From Middle English houswyf, housewif, huswijf, equivalent to house + wife; a doublet of hussy, which it was long distinguished from and displaced due to gradual negative connotation (see Online Etymology Dictionary entry). Cognate with West Frisian húswiif, Dutch huiswijf, German Low German Huuswief, German Hausweib.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).