See better half in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for better half meaning in English (5.9kB)
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"etymology_text": "Ultimately from such Latin poetic phrases as animae dīmidium meae (“half of my soul”) (Horace writing about Virgil), when it instead referred to a close friend (compare soulmate). First written instance of it meaning “spouse” was in 1580 by Sir Philip Sidney.",
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"ref": "2002, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, “Interview”, in The Office, season 2, episode 6 (television production), spoken by Helena (Olivia Colman)",
"text": "Private life then, just to flesh out David Brent the man. Is there a better half?",
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"sense": "spouse or lover",
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{
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"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
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"word": "douce moitié"
},
{
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{
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"sense": "spouse or lover",
"word": "jobbik fél"
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{
"_dis1": "95 5",
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"sense": "spouse or lover",
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"word": "bedre halvdel"
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"roman": "dražájšaja polovína",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "дража́йшая полови́на"
},
{
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"sense": "spouse or lover",
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"sense": "spouse or lover",
"word": "شَرِیکِ سَفْر"
}
]
},
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],
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"tags": [
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"word": "better half"
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"text": "But with that Argalus came out of his swoon, […], it seemed a little cheerful blood came up to his cheeks, like a burning coal, almost dead, if some breath a little revive it: and forcing up, the best he could, his feeble voice, “My dear, my better half,” said he, “I find I must now leave thee: and by that sweet hand, and fair eyes of thine I swear that death brings nothing with it to grieve me but that I must leave thee, […]",
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{
"code": "cs",
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"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
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],
"word": "lepší polovička"
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{
"code": "da",
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"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
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"word": "bedre halvdel"
},
{
"code": "nl",
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"sense": "spouse or lover",
"word": "betere helft"
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{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"word": "parempi puolisko"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "douce moitié"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "meilleure moitié"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "moitié"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "bessere Hälfte"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"word": "jobbik fél"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "bedre halvdel"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "lepsza połowa"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "cara-metade"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "metade"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "dražájšaja polovína",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "дража́йшая полови́на"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "polovína",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "полови́на"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "media naranja"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "bättre hälft"
},
{
"code": "th",
"lang": "Thai",
"roman": "pan-yaa",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"word": "ภรรยา"
},
{
"code": "ur",
"lang": "Urdu",
"roman": "śarīk-i safr",
"sense": "spouse or lover",
"word": "شَرِیکِ سَفْر"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Horace",
"Philip Sidney",
"Virgil"
],
"word": "better half"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.