"merwife" meaning in English

See merwife in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: merwives [plural]
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. Etymology templates: {{inh|en|ang|merewīf|t=water witch, mermaid}} Old English merewīf (“water witch, mermaid”), {{inh|en|gmw-pro|*mariwīb}} Proto-West Germanic *mariwīb, {{inh|en|gem-pro|*mariwībą|t=mermaid, siren}} Proto-Germanic *mariwībą (“mermaid, siren”), {{surf|en|mer-|wife}} By surface analysis, mer- + wife, {{cog|goh|meriwīb}} Old High German meriwīb Head templates: {{en-noun|merwives}} merwife (plural merwives)
  1. A mermaid. Categories (topical): Merpeople

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for merwife meaning in English (2.0kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ang",
        "3": "merewīf",
        "t": "water witch, mermaid"
      },
      "expansion": "Old English merewīf (“water witch, mermaid”)",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "gmw-pro",
        "3": "*mariwīb"
      },
      "expansion": "Proto-West Germanic *mariwīb",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "gem-pro",
        "3": "*mariwībą",
        "t": "mermaid, siren"
      },
      "expansion": "Proto-Germanic *mariwībą (“mermaid, siren”)",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "mer-",
        "3": "wife"
      },
      "expansion": "By surface analysis, mer- + wife",
      "name": "surf"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "goh",
        "2": "meriwīb"
      },
      "expansion": "Old High German meriwīb",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "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.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "merwives",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "merwives"
      },
      "expansion": "merwife (plural merwives)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms prefixed with mer-",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Merpeople",
          "orig": "en:Merpeople",
          "parents": [
            "Mythological creatures",
            "Fantasy",
            "Mythology",
            "Fiction",
            "Speculative fiction",
            "Culture",
            "Artistic works",
            "Genres",
            "Society",
            "Art",
            "Entertainment",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A mermaid."
      ],
      "id": "en-merwife-en-noun-VrPlM0aF",
      "links": [
        [
          "mermaid",
          "mermaid"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "merwife"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ang",
        "3": "merewīf",
        "t": "water witch, mermaid"
      },
      "expansion": "Old English merewīf (“water witch, mermaid”)",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "gmw-pro",
        "3": "*mariwīb"
      },
      "expansion": "Proto-West Germanic *mariwīb",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "gem-pro",
        "3": "*mariwībą",
        "t": "mermaid, siren"
      },
      "expansion": "Proto-Germanic *mariwībą (“mermaid, siren”)",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "mer-",
        "3": "wife"
      },
      "expansion": "By surface analysis, mer- + wife",
      "name": "surf"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "goh",
        "2": "meriwīb"
      },
      "expansion": "Old High German meriwīb",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "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.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "merwives",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "merwives"
      },
      "expansion": "merwife (plural merwives)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English nouns with irregular plurals",
        "English terms derived from Old English",
        "English terms derived from Proto-Germanic",
        "English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic",
        "English terms inherited from Old English",
        "English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic",
        "English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic",
        "English terms prefixed with mer-",
        "en:Merpeople"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A mermaid."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "mermaid",
          "mermaid"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "merwife"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (1d5a7d1 and 304864d). 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.