Noun: spouse
| Singular | spouse |
| Plural | spouses |
Sample Sentences
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People should treat their spouses with respect.
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At last such grace I found, and meanes I wrought, / That I that Ladie to my spouse had wonne [1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 21:]
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But mama got wise to the game / The youngest of five kids, hon here it is / After ten years without no spouse / Mama's gettin married in the house [1992, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)”, in Mecca and the Soul Brother:]
Nouns inflected like spouse
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English spous, spouse, from Anglo-Norman espus m, espuse f and Old French espos m, espose f and by aphesis from Latin spōnsus m (“bridegroom”), spōnsa f (“bride”), from spondeō (“to vow, pledge”), from Proto-Indo-European *spend-. Displaced native Old English ġemaca.
2. Related to espouse and sponsor. See: Latin Nouns '
spōnsus'.