wivish

English

Adjective

wivish (comparative more wivish, superlative most wivish)

1. Alternative form of wifish.
   • 1664, N[icholas] B[acon], The History of the Life & Actions of S^t. Athanasius, Together with the Rise, Growth, and Downfall of the Arian Heresie. Collected from Primitive Writers., London: […] D. Maxwell, […] Christopher Eccleston, […], page 213:

     […] by her wiviſh and womaniſh ſolicitations ſo hampered Valentinian in his proceedings, […]

   • 1978, R. A. Nicholls, Almost Like Talking, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 27:

     Celia felt warm and wivish and randy.

   • 2002, Patricia Phillippy, Women, Death and Literature in Post-Reformation England, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 8:

     This uniquely Protestant assault on wivish mourning conflates excessive feminine grief which unduly laments the body’s demise with Catholic mourning, consistently stressing the continuity between women’s mourning as an imperfect version of men’s stoic sorrow and Catholic liturgical excesses as imperfect (per)versions of reformed ceremonies.