husband

• IPA^(key): /ˈhʌzbənd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

From Middle English husbonde, housbonde, from Old English hūsbonda, hūsbunda (“male head of a household, householder, master of a house”), probably from Old Norse húsbóndi (“master of house”), from hús (“house”) + bóndi (“dweller, householder”), equivalent to house +‎ bond (“serf, slave", originally, "dweller”).

Bond in turn represents a formation derived from the present participle of WestScand. búa, EastScand. bôa = to build, plow; cf. German bauen, der Bauende. Cognate with Icelandic húsbóndi (“head of household”), Faroese húsbóndi (“husband”), Norwegian husbond (“head of household, husband”), Swedish husbonde (“master”), Danish husbond (“husband”) (< Old Danish husbonde).

husband (plural husbands)

1. (obsolete) The master of a house; the head of a family; a householder.
2. (obsolete) A tiller of the ground; a husbandman.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: Printed [by Richard Field] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 932900760, book IV, canto III:

     […] a withered tree, through husbands toyle, / Is often seene full freshly to have florisht […]

   • (Can we date this quote?) George Hakewill

     the painful husband, ploughing up his ground

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Evelyn

     He is the neatest husband for curious ordering his domestick and field accommodations.

3. (archaic) A prudent or frugal manager.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Thomas Fuller

     God knows how little time is left me, and may I be a good husband, to improve the short remnant left me.

4. A man in a marriage or marital relationship, especially in relation to his spouse.

   You should start dating so you can find a suitable husband.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Blackstone

     The husband and wife are one person in law.

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 55 Fifth Avenue, [1933], OCLC 2666860, page 0016:

     A great bargain also had been […] the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire. In fact, that arm-chair had been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to be comfortable after the day's work was done, and she had paid thirty-seven shillings for the chair.

   • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 6, in A Cuckoo in the Nest:

     But Sophia's mother was not the woman to brook defiance. After a few moments' vain remonstrance her husband complied. His manner and appearance were suggestive of a satiated sea-lion.

5. The male of a pair of animals.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

6. (Britain) A manager of property; one who has the care of another's belongings, owndom, or interests; a steward; an economist.
7. A large cushion with arms meant to support a person in the sitting position.

   While reading her book, Sally leaned back against her husband, wishing it were the human kind.

8. (Britain dialectal) A polled tree; a pollard.

• See also Thesaurus:husband

• wife

• wedder
• partner (may or may not be married)
• spouse (may also apply to wife)

husband (third-person singular simple present husbands, present participle husbanding, simple past and past participle husbanded)

1. (transitive) To manage or administer carefully and frugally; use to the best advantage; economise.

   For my means, I'll husband them so well, / They shall go far. — Shakespeare.

2. (transitive) To conserve.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     ...I found pens, ink, and paper, and I husbanded them to the utmost; and I shall show that while my ink lasted, I kept things very exact, but after that was gone I could not, for I could not make any ink by any means that I could devise.

3. (transitive, obsolete) To till; cultivate; farm; nurture.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Evelyn

     Land so trim and rarely husbanded.

4. (transitive) To provide with a husband.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

5. (transitive) To engage or act as a husband to; assume the care of or responsibility for; accept as one's own.

• husbandable
• husbandry

husband (plural husbands)

1. Alternative form of husbonde

hus (“house”) +‎ band (“band”)

husband n

1. a group of musicians who regularly play live in a TV show