man and wife
24
4.0
- noun
- Archaic
:
marido y mujer
- By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife.
- pronounce you man and wife
- together as man and wife
- became man and wife
Does the Bible say that man and wife should be two in one flesh, That a lot has been written about that a lot has been thought about it, Stephens writes.
- Does the Bible say that man and wife should be two in one flesh, That a lot has been written about that a lot has been thought about it, Stephens writes.
- It's through that let's discuss this man and wife to figure out what's best in any circumstance.
- And it is a, a human way of relating man and wife.
Examples
-
"By the powers vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife," Nathan declared.
Fiction book (1994) -
Will you love and honor each other, as man and wife, for the rest of your life?
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"We'll learn, together, how to be man and wife, the way God intended."
Fiction book (2000) -
And with that, we were pronounced... man and wife.
-
I now pronounce you man and wife and best friends for life.
-
Then, by the power vested in me by the State of California, I now declare you man and wife.
Fiction book (1997) -
By the power vested in me... and by virtue of the solemn promises you have here made, one to another... I hereby pronounce you man and wife.
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For as much as Homer and Wilma have consented together in holy wedlock... ...and have witnessed the same before God and this company... ...and thereto have given and pledged their troth, each to the other... ...and have declared the same by giving and receiving a ring... ...and by joining hands... ...I pronounce that they are man and wife.
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Will you love and honor each other, as man and wife, for the rest of your life?
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I now pronounce you man and wife.
Synonyms
70
1.0
Two people who are married to each other
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase 'man and wife' is directly compositional: combining 'man' + 'and' + 'wife' yields the simple meaning 'a married man and his wife' and therefore denotes a married couple. This coordinated construction is a common, cross-linguistic way to label couples (though somewhat formal/archaic in English), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
The phrase man and wife comes from old wedding and court language. In ceremonies a priest or minister would call the two people man and wife to show they were joined, and that simple image explains why the phrase means 'married couple' today.