husband

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The man that a woman is married to.

   She introduced me to her husband at the party.

2. 2
   verb

   To use or manage something carefully and without waste.

   During the long winter, they had to husband their food supplies.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Husband comes from Old Norse húsbondí, “master of a house.” In Old English it meant a male head of a household or a manager or steward, an idea preserved in expressions such as husband your resources. Around the 13th century it acquired the sense “a woman’s married partner.” It also came to mean “farmer or cultivator” and, as a verb, “to cultivate”; these obsolete agricultural senses survive in husbandry.

From Middle English husbonde, from Old English hūsbonda (“head of household”), from Old Norse húsbóndi, from hús + bóndi, corresponding to Proto-Germanic *hūsą (“house”) and *būandz (“dwelling, residing”, present participle). Compare English house and bond³.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary