a. Forms: see WIFE sb.; also 5–6 wyue-, 5–7 wiue-, wiveles, -less(e. [OE. wífléas, f. wíf WIFE sb. + -léas -LESS.] Having no wife; unmarried, celibate; rarely, deprived or bereaved of, or not accompanied by, one’s wife. a. of a man.
a. 1000. in Thorpe, Laws, II. 190. Wuniʓe he a syððan wifleas.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 26281. He þat slas his aun wijf, He agh be wijfeles al his lijf.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., I. 364. Þei ben dowid and wyflees aȝens Goddis autorite.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Merch. T., 4. Sixty yeer a wyflees man was hee.
c. 1400. Beryn, 1090. Agea was enterid, And ffawnus lyvid wyfles.
1480. Robt. Devyll, 25, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 219. Wyueles longe … haue I taryed, And lyued sole, withoute any mate.
1574. T. Newton, Health Mag., V iij b. Wiuelesse Bachelers and husbandlesse maydens.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, V. vii. 410. They liue on almes,… They are wiuelesse.
a. 1623. H. Swinburne, Spousals (1686), 169. He was then Wifeless.
1842. C. Whitehead, R. Savage, xviii. Many of the married fellows do not appear to be a whit happier than your wifeless men.
a. 1849. J. C. Mangan, Poems (1859), 459. Wifeless, friendless, flaggonless,… Not quite bookless, though.
1859. Tennyson, Elaine, 1362. A lonely man Wifeless and heirless.
b. of life, state, etc.
1546. Bale, Engl. Votaries, Pref. 4. Their vowed wyuelesse and husbandelesse chastyte.
1548. Crowley, Confut. Shaxton, H vj b. The gyft of wyueles lyfe.
1563. Homilies, II. Matrimonie, Tttt ij. They in theyr wiuelesse state run into open abhominations.
1840. Hood, Our Lady’s Chapel, 13. Whose mouldy, wifeless husbandry but yields Beans, pens, potatoes, mangel-wurzel, rye.
¶ Catachrestically used of a woman: That is not a wife; unmarried.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, xxxii. A wifeless mother.
Hence Wifelessness, wifeless condition.
1885. Macon Telegraph, 8 Feb., 7/1. The visitor is not stimulated to either secular cheerfulness or religious awe as he mounts to call on the son of a bishop suddenly distinguished by his vows of poverty and wifelessness.
1886. ‘M. Gray,’ Silence of Dean Maitland (1887), II. III. ii. 129. His six years’ wifelessness had weighed sorely upon him.
1915. Tucson Citizen, 11 Feb., 2/1. The bliss of wifelessness is variously estimated by Montana scions. Representative Fishbaugh would tax bachelors $100 annually for the joy supposed to be theirs, while Rep. Mackel of Butte thinks that $2.50 is all it is worth.
