Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Spouse   Listen
noun
Spouse  n.  
1.
A man or woman engaged or joined in wedlock; a married person, husband or wife. "At last such grace I found, and means I wrought, That I that lady to my spouse had won."
2.
A married man, in distinction from a spousess or married woman; a bridegroom or husband. (Obs.) "At which marriage was (were) no persons present but the spouse, the spousess, the Duchess of Bedford her mother, the priest, two gentlewomen, and a young man."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Spouse" Quotes from Famous Books



... Anna Laurie, spouse to Alexr. Fergusone of Craigdarrock. Forasmuch as I considering it a devotie upon everie persone whyle they are in health and sound judgement so to settle yr. worldly affairs that yrby all animosities betwixt friend and relatives may obviat and also for the singular love and respect I have for ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... Nora playfully led Hippy away by an ear. They found them half an hour later sitting by the fire where Nora was still lecturing her irrepressible spouse. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower

... now, timid, anxious, —we, poor in deeds. Before we perish, once more unto Thy children join Thyself. A heavenly sign foretells Thy blessing shall descend on us. Brute force is shattered, and with night all round about, Thy affianced spouse, loving, yearning, Calls on Thy faithfulness; she pleads with her eyes, and asks, is still she Thine, Is hers Thy love ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... domestic exchequer is due to his extravagance, the husband having lent him money. She does not believe, and Paz feigns an intrigue with a circus-rider in order to lull all suspicions. She says to her adored spouse, "Get rid of this extravagant friend! Away with him! He is a profligate, a gambler! A drunkard!" Paz finally departs, and when he has gone, the lady finds out the poor Pole's worth. The story does not end satisfactorily. Balzac was too great ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... hear my damned obstreperous spouse! What, can't you find one bed about the house! Will that perpetual clack lie never still! That rival to the softness of a mill! Some couch and distant room must be my choice, Where I may sleep uncursed with wife ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... Tony's brother, huge and bluff too, but fair and blond, with the beauty of Northern Italy. With the same lack of race pride which Tony had displayed in selecting his German spouse, John had taken unto himself Betty, a daughter of Erin, aggressive, powerful, and cross-eyed. He turned up now, having heard of this illness, and assumed an air of remarkable ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar

... spouse had never seen De Vlierbeck so pleasant and so gay; and, as they sincerely loved their master, they were as much delighted by his joy as if they had been preparing for a village fair in which they were to take part. They never ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience

... Kindred's sire, Was six feet high, and look'd six inches higher; Erect, morose, determined, solemn, slow, Who knew the man could never cease to know: His faithful spouse, when Jonas was not by, Had a firm presence and a steady eye; But with her husband dropp'd her look and tone, And Jonas ruled unquestion'd and alone. He read, and oft would quote the sacred words, How pious ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... for another year, Refreshed their spirits, and renewed their hope Of such a future feast and future crop. Then with their fellow-joggers of the ploughs, Their little children, and their faithful spouse, A sow they slew to Vesta's deity, And kindly milk, Silvanus, poured to thee. With flowers and wine their Genius they adored; A short life and a merry was the word. From flowing cups defaming rhymes ensue, And at each other homely taunts ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... history we merely read: "Their Excellencies the Barons and Counts and their noble spouses, their Highnesses the Dukes and Princes and their most noble spouses were beheaded. His Majesty the King, and his most illustrious spouse, the Queen, were beheaded."—But when you hear the red march of the guillotine drummed, you understand it correctly for the first time, and with it the how and the why. Madame, that is really a wonderful march! ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... feed my people.' Accordingly, the Magi from Arabia came to Bethlehem, and worshipped the child, and presented him with gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh; but returned not to Herod, being warned in a revelation after worshipping the child in Bethlehem. And Joseph, the spouse of Mary, who wished at first to put away his betrothed Mary, supposing her to be pregnant by intercourse with a man, i.e. from fornication, was commanded in a vision not to put away his wife; and the angel who appeared to him told him that what is in her ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... of England," cried a scholar of Cluny: "what doth her representative here? Seeks he a spouse for her among our schools? She will have no great bargain, I own, if she bestows her royal hand upon ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... My Friends, with what a Brave Carouse I put a Second Mortgage on my House, So I could Buy a lot of Copper Shares— I even used the Savings of my Spouse! ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells

... "Sir Guy, my spouse, a mother's prayers, I too Would blend with hers. O yield, Our only child, Possession sweet of woman's holy field— Affection's glebe—a virgin soil denied When wedlock makes those one whose hearts ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer

... assistance, and moreover insisted on my staying with him to dine. It seemed to me that I was never in a more comfortable house, and I am sure I never received a more cordial greeting than that bestowed upon me by his venerable spouse. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... straight up at the vision of his spouse. "Flouncing Florence!" was his exclamation. "Gee-whittaker, Mary, if you ain't the most unmitigated sight!" And wind then ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister

... start upon my road, and who offered to give me a lift in his trap as far as La Roche Canillac. Meanwhile, he had unpacked all his samples of cloth with a view to doing a little business with the mayor. This personage, however, was not allowed to have much voice in the matter; it was his spouse who represented his interests in the bargaining battle that was now waged with deafening din and much apparent ferocity for three-quarters of an hour. The little pedlar was used to this kind of thing, and ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... She wore a black lace dress, for ever since the annulling of her marriage she liked to dress in black. She had made the acquaintance of her Greek at Biarritz, and had obstinately insisted on marrying him. But when Prince Katakasianopulos proved himself an impossible spouse, the family was happy to be rid of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... Moreover, the petitions and intercessions which came to the viceroy, as well as to the King of Spain, from the German princes, increased daily; nay, the Emperor, Maximilian II., himself caused the countess to be assured "that she had nothing to fear for the life of her spouse." These powerful applications might at last turn the king's heart in favor of the prisoners. The king might, perhaps, in reliance on his viceroy's usual dispatch, put on the appearance of yielding to the representations of so many sovereigns, and rescind the sentence of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... potent house of Howard might have given the title of lady Margaret a preference over that of any other competitor. Henry was struck with this danger, however distant and contingent: he caused his niece, as well as her spouse, to be imprisoned; and though he restored her to liberty in a few months, and the death of Howard, not long afterwards, set her free from this ill-starred engagement, she ventured not to form another, till the king himself, at the end ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... going to worry me?" asked she, giving her spouse a playful tap. "I know what I know! Dr. Poulain has given up M. Pons. And we are going to be rich! My name will be down in the will.... I'll see to that. Draw your needle in and out, and look after the lodge; ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... Brahma is the past; Vishnu, the present; Siva, the future. Each part of the trimurti possesses, moreover, a wife. The wife of Brahma is Sarasvati, goddess of wisdom; that of Vishnu, Lakshmi, goddess of virtue, and Siva's spouse is Kali, goddess of ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... drop it with pleasure, but it is that of my flock, of these miserable Indians, wearied and oppressed by unjust slavery and insupportable tributes, which others of my flock have imposed upon them. Here I wish to remain; this church is my spouse, it is not mine to abandon. This is the purpose of my residence [here]. I wish to irrigate it with my blood, if they take my life, so that zeal for God's service may be absorbed by the very ground I hold, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... again a widow after three years of wedded life. She was a woman of talent and courage; both proved by the couplet she composed for her own epitaph, at the very moment of a dangerous accident which happened during her journey into Spain to join her second affianced spouse. ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... to his companion, finally vouchsafing the information that the doctor's buggy was just turning the corner; Eskew Arp had suffered a "stroke," it was said, and, in Louden's opinion, was a mighty sick man. His spouse replied in no uncertain terms that she had seen quite that much for herself, urging him to continue, which he did with a deliberation that caused her to recall their wedding-day with a gust of passionate self-reproach. Presently he managed to interrupt, reminding ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... under favourable circumstances, for two years longer; after which she will decline. Crowing hens, and those that have large combs, are generally looked on with mistrust; but this is mere silliness and superstition—though it is possible that a spruce young cock would as much object to a spouse with such peculiar addictions, as a young fellow of our own species would to a damsel who whistled and who wore whiskers. Fowls with yellow legs should be avoided; they are generally of a tender constitution, loose-fleshed, and ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... know, my friends, with what a brave carouse I made a second marriage in my house, Divorced old barren Reason from my bed And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse. ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... Tim was joking. This was some odd prank. He had borrowed the tin trunk and was giving me a travesty on Tip Pulsifer fleeing over the mountain from his petulant spouse: for last night Tim and I had had a little tiff. For the first time I had forgotten the post-prandial pipe, and undismayed by the horrors of the famine in India or the tribulations of Sister Flora Martin, journeyed up the road to sit at ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... sleep into a time for revolting debauches with soda water syphons and flour. In fact it is commonly thought that the end of the above-mentioned aged pug dog was hastened by the excitable Lord Frederick de Vere Thomson hurling it, in mistake for a footstool, at the head of his still more skittish spouse—the celebrated Tootie Rootles of the Gaiety. This hallowed spot has been roped off, and is shown with becoming pride by the present owner to any unfortunate he can inveigle into listening to him. Finally I would draw ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... it gave her to refer to her husband or to quote him. Her prattle was so full of, "My husband says, says my husband," that it seemed as though the chief purpose of her jabber was to parade her married state and to hear herself talk of her spouse. The words, "My husband," were music to her ears. They actually meant, "Behold, I am an ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... and corporal: a devotion incompatible with domestic cares; he could and did allow the superiority of voluntary virginity and absolute chastity over the contrary state of lawful use; but he could hardly have justified—hardly not have condemned those who leave father, friend, or spouse, not merely externally in order to be free for good works, but internally in order that their hearts may be free for the contemplation and love of God viewed apart from creatures and not merely in them. He might perhaps say ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... and left the room, returning in a short time with the janitor and his spouse. Miss Easton took the pen from Jack's hand and wrote her name, Violet Easton, in a clear, distinct manner. The janitor subscribed his name as one of the witnesses, and his ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... That is the word. I thee defy again. O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get? No! to the spital go, And from the powdering tub of infamy Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind, Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse. I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly For the only she; and—pauca, ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]

... solemn spouse, "I shall hope to be the means, under Providence, of effecting all needful reforms in the husbandry of this farm. But the sister you mention (I trust she is not of the world's people)—have I the pleasure of knowing her? The ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... elevation overlooking the plain, with Kingston and the harbour in the distance; it was thus exposed to the sea breeze, so necessary to anything like enjoyment in the tropics. Mrs Twigg, a buxom little lady—a fitting partner to her sprightly, jovial spouse—received Ellen with a hearty welcome to Jamaica. She evidently saw how matters stood between her and the young lieutenant, and, as far as her sense of the duties of a hostess would allow her, left them together as much as they ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... of the year the god Titlacahuan had warned Nata and his spouse Nena, saying, 'Make no more wine of Agave, but begin to hollow out a great cypress, and you will enter into it when in the month Tozontli the water approaches ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... his snoring spouse, "I wish you would get up and look about. I think one of the children must have ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... the constant Cantharus, Is ever constant to his faithful Spouse, In nuptial duties spending his chaste life, Never loves any ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton

... extraordinary reserve; if, perhaps, he was not thinking of taking a wife? "It is so," he replied: "I shall take one, but one so noble and so beautiful, that such another will not be found in the whole world." Evangelical poverty, which he afterwards embraced, was the spouse to which the Holy Ghost inspired ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... The mere presence, Madame, of Your Majesty, reveals to every eye the precious gifts of the Providence who called you to this throne. No longer, in order to admire you, are we forced to content ourself with the report of fame, and already are verified those words of your immortal spouse, that loved first on his account, you will soon be loved for yourself. May it be permitted, Madame, to apply these words to the city of Paris! May you honor it at first with your good-will, and soon love for itself this great part of the immense family of Frenchmen, which on this solemn ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... felicity—when his death was reckoned certain, his estate settled, his name dismissed from memory and his wife long, long ago resigned to her autumnal widowhood—he entered the door one evening quietly as from a day's absence, and became a loving spouse till death. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of Frederick Red-beard, Emperor of Germany, to my predecessor, Godmund Bradwardine, it being the crest of a gigantic Dane, whom he slew in the lists in the Holy Land, on a quarrel touching the chastity of the emperor's spouse or daughter, tradition saith not precisely which, and thus, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... get his face as close to hers as possible whenever a chance presented itself for his so doing—was a retired stock broker who, having made a considerable hit in a great speculation by which he realized a handsome sum, prudently took the advice of his spouse and let well enough alone, retired from business, left their dusky residence in the city, and moved to their present abode, No. 54 Upper Harley Street. Mrs. Cotterell was the youngest sister of ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... Duchess of A——— retains her box to dispose of her unmarried daughters, and enjoy the gratification of meeting in public the once flattering groups of noble expectants who formerly paid their ready homage to her charms and courted her approving smile; but then her ducal spouse was high in favour, and in office, and now these "summer flies o' the court" are equally steady in their devotion to his successor, and can scarcely find memory or opportunity to recognise the relict of their late ministerial ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... shame durst not assert the freedom that every Englishman would claim a right to, in almost every other instance! He had once put by the glass, and excused himself on account of his health; but on being laughed at for a sober dog, as they phrased it, and asked, if his spouse had not lectured him before he came out, he gave way to the wretched raillery: nor could I interfere at such a noisy moment with effect: they had laughed him out of his caution before I could be heard; and I left him there at nine o'clock trying with Bagenhall ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... desecration, But with blood and spirit of life poured forth to death; Blood unspotted, spirit unsullied, life devoted, Sister too supreme to make the bride's hope good, Daughter too divine as woman to be noted, Spouse of only death in mateless maidenhood. Yea, in her was all the prayer fulfilled, the saying All accomplished—Would that fate would let me wear Hallowed innocence of words and all deeds, weighing Well the laws thereof, begot on holier ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Cuba: I hold to my first-sworn vows, If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse! ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... palpable penchant of his ward, next underwent discussion; until the ignorance of my noble father on the subject, gave, with me, the death-blow to his penetration. The prettinesses which had won the primrose heart of my brother's intended spouse, I found were equally notorious; the Earl's project was as plain as if he had pronounced it viva voce; and before we parted for the night, which did not occur until the sun was blazing through the curtains of our banqueting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... "His own image," and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," whereby man became "a living soul:" and further, when I find it stated that Adam bestowed names upon all creatures: and spake oracularly of his spouse:—I am certain, I say, when I read such things, that GOD intended me to believe that Man was created with a Godlike understanding, and with the perfect fruition of the primval speech. Further, I boldly assert that he who could prove ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... seat to Adolay, but her father thought it better to decline for her. She was therefore left in the camp in care of old Mangivik and his amiable spouse. ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... bachelor or two more or less are always spoken of as nobodies, and there was no reason why Mr Slope should not drink tea at Dr Stanhope's as well as Eleanor herself. He, however, was very much surprised and not very much gratified at finding that his own embryo spouse made one of the party. He had come there to gratify himself by gazing on Madame Neroni's beauty, and listening to and returning her flattery: and though he had not owned as much to himself, he still felt that if he spent the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... the father of the girl and that of the young man, or some one who represents them, commence the more prosaic part of the business, that is: they decide upon the sort of presents that the bridegroom must give the parents and sisters of his spouse on the wedding-day, to compensate them for the girl he ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... give Remission to my Grief? I'll take the Sword Of my departed Spouse— [She goes to take Amadis's Sword. And make Death unite two ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... could have been made. He entered his capital without pomp, unattended by guards, distinguished only for the dignity of his bearing, allowing free access to his person, and paying vows to the gods of his country. His wife, Plotina, bore herself as the spouse of a simple senator, and his sister, Marciana, exhibited a ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... Remember that Jesus Christ thy son, for their salvation, suffered a most cruel death; permit not, I beseech thee, that he should be despised by those Idolaters. Vouchsafe to be propitiated by the prayers of the church, thy most holy spouse, and call to mind thy own compassion. Forget, O Lord, their infidelity, and work in such manner, that at length they may acknowledge for their God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent into the world, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... gave a lesson to the world of the feebleness of human virtue when it placed itself in opposition to divine power. She could teach how the chaste Diana manifests herself to the simple shepherd Endymion, not to the great or learned; and how Tithonus, the spouse of the Morn, adumbrates the fate of those who revel in their youth, as if it were to last for ever; and who, when old, do nothing but talk of the days when they were young, wearying others with tales of "their amours or their exploits, like grasshoppers that show their vigour only ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... lawful spouse of Vice President Pumpelly, of Cuban Crucible, erstwhile of Athens, Ohio, was fully conscious that even if she wasn't the smartest thing on Fifth Avenue, her snappy little car was. It was, as she ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... art, judgement, or taste to recommend them to any standard, or reduce them to any order. That ornament of the hair which is styled the Horns, and has been in vogue so long, was certainly first calculated by some good-natured lady to keep her spouse in countenance."[139] ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... turned to her parents and requested them to give her the spouse they had promised, saying that she would have ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... Joe," she called over her shoulder to her less intrepid spouse. "Are you goin' to leave me alone to face these desperate drunkards, lurchin' around in the dead of night, an' makin' the road unsafe for doctors who might be out on some errand of mercy—they're the only respectable people who wouldn't be abed at this hour of ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes

... the citation, because it was your duty to obey it," returned Laraynie. "But I see here a multitude who have come neither by indictment nor invitation. It is natural enough that the Duke de Bouillon should accompany his spouse on an occasion of such solemn import to her safety; but who are all these people that have ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... wakes up in the morning, his drowsy face grotesquely surmounted by the folds of a silk handkerchief which falls over his left temple like a police cap, he is certainly a laughable object, and it is difficult to recognize in him the glorious spouse, celebrated in the strophes of Rousseau; but, nevertheless, there is a certain gleam of life to illume the stupidity of a countenance half dead—and if you artists wish to make fine sketches, you should travel on the stage-coach and, when the postilion wakes up the postmaster, just examine the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... wait patiently for my death! Well, here it is, my death! Here it is and there are you, united above my grave, linked together with the handcuffs. Marie, be the wife of my friend Sauverand. Sauverand, I bestow my spouse upon you. Be joined together in holy matrimony. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... cannot endure the smell of fish— I have taken an anti-bias To their livers, especially since the day That the Angel smoked my cousin away From the chaste spouse ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Heaven forecast And long'd for from eternity, Though laid the last; Reverberating dome, Of music cunningly built home Against the void and indolent disgrace Of unresponsive space; Little, sequester'd pleasure-house For God and for His Spouse; Elaborately, yea, past conceiving, fair, Since, from the graced decorum of the hair, Ev'n to the tingling, sweet Soles of the simple, earth-confiding feet, And from the inmost heart Outwards unto the thin Silk curtains of the ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... and glad hours, and all hours, pass over; One thing unshaken stays: Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... "Pshaw!" growled the spouse, and he reseated himself and resumed his pipe. There was a dead silence. Sidney crouched near his uncle, looking very pale. Mrs. Morton, who was knitting, knitted away with the excited ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a fine trick! You must swallow a salt herring in three bites, bones and all, and not drink a drop till the apparition of your future spouse comes in the night to offer you ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... with fifty dollars' worth of delicacies on his arm, Smith meets Jones, who is exulting with a bag of crackers under one arm and a choice little bit of an oil painting under the other, which he thinks a bargain at fifty dollars. 'I can't afford to buy pictures,' Smith says to his spouse, 'and I don't know how Jones and his wife manage.' Jones and his wife will live on bread and milk for a month, and she will turn her best gown the third time, but they will have their picture, and they are happy. Jones's picture remains, and Smith's fifty dollars' worth of oysters and ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... obligations are due, in a more especial manner, to the younger Mr. Schweighaeuser and to Madame Francs. I have passed several pleasant evenings with the former, and talked much of the literature of our country with him and his newly married spouse: a lively, lady-like, and intelligent woman. She is warm in commendation of the Mary Stuart of Schiller; which, in reply to a question on my part, she considers to be the most impassioned of that ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... was the eldest of a family of eight sons and three daughters, born to James, Earl of Balcarres, by his spouse, Anne Dalrymple, a daughter of Sir Robert Dalrymple, of Castleton, Bart. She was born at Balcarres, in Fife, on the 8th of December 1750. Inheriting a large portion of the shrewdness long possessed by the old ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... word to say. The schoolmaster was equally astounded, and withdrew the pipe from his mouth; that of the exciseman dropped to the ground: the landlord groaned aloud, and his spouse held up her hands in mingled astonishment and awe. After giving them this last piece of information, the strange man arose from his seat, broke his pipe in pieces, and pitched the fragments into the fire; then, throwing his long cloak carelessly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various

... shoulde bee boner and buxome vnto their husbandes with all humylytye, and Peter also bryngethe vs an example of Sara, that called her husbande Abrahame, Lorde. xantippa. I know that as well as you then ye same paule say that men shoulde loue theyr wyues, as Christ loues his spouse the churche let him do his duete I wil do myne. Eula. But for all that, when the matter is so farre that the one muste forber the other it is reason that the woman giue place vnto the man, xan. Is he meete to be called my husbande that maketh me his vnderlynge ...
— A Merry Dialogue Declaringe the Properties of Shrowde Shrews and Honest Wives • Desiderius Erasmus

... I'm willing enough to sleep at the house, and thank you too for your kindness." So it was arranged that I should pass the coming night within the walls of the empty mansion; and, until it was time to retire thither, I amused and edified myself by a friendly chat with the old man and his spouse, both of whom were vastly communicative. At ten o'clock I and my host adjourned to the house, which stood at a very short distance from the lodge. I carried my bag, and my companion bore the blankets already referred to, a candle, and ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... the two Majesties a little less disposed for open quarrel, or rash utterance of their ill humor in time coming. But, in the mean while, all mutual interests are in a painful state of suspended animation: in Berlin there is a privately rebellious Spouse and Household, there is a Tobacco-Parliament withal;—and the royal mind, sensitive, imaginative as a poet's, as a woman's, and liable to transports as of a Norse Baresark, is of uncertain movement. Such a load of intricacies and exaggerated anxieties ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... fearless nature, strong yet sensitive, unbending before the pride and hate of powerful men, resolute, and ready even where fate itself declares that death lurks where his road must lie; his beautiful Queen Jane is sweet, tender, loving, devoted—meet spouse for a poet and king. The incidents too are those of history: the choice and final collocation of them, and the closing scene in which the queen mourns her husband, being the sum of the author's contribution. And those incidents are in the highest degree varied ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... the perfumed chambers of this enchantress, were attracted less by their belief in her occult powers than from admiration of her languishing bright eyes and sparkling conversation. But amid all the incense that was offered at her shrine, Madame di Cagliostro was ever faithful to her spouse. She encouraged hopes, it is true, but she never realised them; she excited admiration, yet kept it within bounds; and made men her slaves, without ever granting a favour of which ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... 'My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall, Along the bordering Lake, And when they on their father call, What answer shall she make?'— "Enough, enough, my yeoman good,[am] Thy grief let none gainsay; But I, who am of lighter mood, Will laugh to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... at all. There was no longer any chance of his having legitimate offspring. The Duke of York, his younger brother, was therefore heir to the throne, and he was known to be an austere and narrow Papist, while his spouse, Mary of Modena, was as bigoted as himself. Should they have children, there could be no question but that they would be brought up in the faith of their parents, and that a line of Catholic monarchs would occupy the throne of England. To the Church, as represented ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... in every home A voice that sings about the house. A nurse that scares the nightmares off A mother nearer than a spouse ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... wife who might, perhaps, take him for a companion more at fault than her spouse, he opened the first door he came to and pushed the ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... part of the trunk, we could not positively ascertain. Quambo expressed his belief that she had been there, but had taken the opportunity, while we went in chase of her spouse, to make her escape with her offspring. We possibly might have found her; but, with her young to defend, she would have proved a dangerous foe, and, as our torches were almost burnt out, we should have had to encounter her in the dark. We therefore ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... forsaken spouse of the gay Lysander Sprowl, she too, after sulkily brooding over her misfortunes all day, was glad enough to have any intelligent person come in and break the monotony of her sad ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... my dear. A woman cannot be at the same time the wife of a man and the spouse of Christ. That would be bigamy; she must choose between a husband and a nunnery. For the sake of future advantage you have stripped your soul of all the love, all the devotion, which God commands that you should have for me, you have cherished ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac

... and leering archly at me, gave us both joy, and said, "we were well paired, i' faith! that a great many gentlemen and ladies used his house, but he had never seen a handsomer couple... he was sure I was a fresh piece... I looked so country, so innocent! well my spouse was a lucky man!..." all which, common landlord's cant, not only pleased and soothed me, but helped to diver my confusion at being with my new sovereign, whom, the minute approached, I began to fear to ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... at the inn that they had no accommodation for me, that their one spare room had been engaged! "What am I to do, then?" I demanded of the landlord. "Beyond this village I cannot go to-night—do you want me to go out and sleep under a hedge?" He called his spouse, and after some conversation they said the village baker might be able to put me up, as he had a spare bedroom in his house. So to the baker's I went, and found it a queer, ramshackle old place, standing a little back from the village street in a garden and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... The fatigues and excitements of the evening and the preparation for it were followed by a natural collapse, of which somnolence was a leading symptom. The sun shone into the window at a pretty well opened angle when the Colonel first found himself sufficiently awake to address his yet slumbering spouse. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear: 'Though wedded we have been These twice ten tedious years, yet we No ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... and void, and to preserve and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful; that knowledge may not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as a bond-woman, to acquire and gain to her master's use; but as a spouse, for generation, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... and beauty of the chevalier's second wife was quite correct, and although she devoted herself a great deal to the Brazilian coffee planter and the Irish-Italian "Martinelli," she had a way of looking over at her middle-aged spouse, without his knowledge, that left no doubt in Cleek's mind regarding the real state of her feelings toward the man. And last, but not least by any means, he found the chevalier himself a frank, open-minded, open-hearted, lovable man, who ought not, in the natural order of things, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... willers So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfold Softer'n a baby's be at three days old Thet's robin-redbreast's almanick; he knows Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. Then seems to come a hitch,—things lag behind, Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind, An' ez, when snow-swelled avers cresh their dams Heaped-up with ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... correct, according to the standard of the great Worcester; she is subject to lachrymose cataclysms and semiconvulsive upheavals when she reverts in memory to her past trials, and especially when she recalls the virtues of her deceased spouse, who was, I suspect, an adjunct such as one finds not rarely annexed to a capable matron in charge of an establishment like hers; that is to say, an easy-going, harmless, fetch-and-carry, carve-and-help, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... husband. The more she gave up herself to the one, the more she loathed the other. Never had Charles seemed to her so disagreeable, to have such stodgy fingers, such vulgar ways, to be so dull as when they found themselves together after her meeting with Rodolphe. Then, while playing the spouse and virtue, she was burning at the thought of that head whose black hair fell in a curl over the sunburnt brow, of that form at once so strong and elegant, of that man, in a word, who had such experience in his reasoning, such passion in his desires. It was for him that she filed her nails ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... See," answered the courier, bowing, "with letters for the High and Mighty Lord Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of Pesaro, and his noble spouse, Madonna Lucrezia Borgia." ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... should start for New York on the following Monday morning. Mrs. Balberry had relatives at Rochester, and they made arrangements to stop over at that point for one night, for neither the farmer or his spouse wished to take a ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.

... at the huntsman's expense, under cover of which he prudently withdrew his spouse, without attempting to continue the war of tongues, in which she had shown such a decided superiority. This controversy, so light is the change in human spirits, especially among the lower class, awakened bursts of idle mirth among beings, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... Migwan were ready with a stunt to amuse the audience. They dramatized that classic argument between the man and his wife as to whether the crime was committed with a knife or a scissors. Migwan, as the husband, stoutly maintained that it was a knife, and Hinpoha, as his spouse, fiercely declared it was a scissors. Arguing hotly, they went out in a canoe, and soon came to blows about the point in question. The man threw his wife overboard, and hit her with a paddle every time she poked her head up. She kept coming up and saying, "Scissors!" while he insisted, "Knife!" ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... to the imperial throne, and found that the first day of his reign was the last of his happiness. On the death of his wife, whose wrongs he had so severely revenged, he endeavoured to compel Eudox'ia, the widow of the murdered emperor, to become his spouse. In her indignation at this insulting proposal, Eudox'ia did not hesitate to apply for aid to Gen'seric, king of those Vandals that had seized Africa; and the barbarian king, glad of such a fair pretence, soon appeared with a powerful fleet in the Tiber. 22. Max'imus was murdered in ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... mistress; every noble blackguard professed to be a Darby for constancy and was a Jonathan Wild by instinct. If her ideals were raised so high, the worse for her; if a farce of a ceremony was regarded as tying an indissoluble knot—let her take example by the lady who thought herself the king's spouse; pish! there are ceremonies and ceremonies, and wives and wives; those of the hedge-concealed cottage and those of ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... the foolish grin with which LeFroy submitted to the inevitable. For years he had known LeFroy as a bad man, second only to Lapierre in cunning and brutal cruelty; and to see him now, cowering under the domination of his future spouse, was to MacNair the height of the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... Bud had been listening for. This was the treat of the week for him—to ride to meetin' with the Bishop. Bud, a slubber-slave—henpecked at home, brow-beaten and cowed at the mill, timid, scared, "an' powerful slow-mouthed," as his spouse termed it, worshipped the old Bishop and had no greater pleasure in life, after his hard week's work, than "to ride to meetin' with the old man an' ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore



Words linked to "Spouse" :   spousal, significant other, newlywed, monogynist, consort, husband, honeymooner, domestic partner, helpmate, married woman, monogamist, ex-spouse, better half, married man, helpmeet



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com