Wifman

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An obsolete term from Old English meaning a woman, a female human being in general
2. A historical word, now archaic, used in earlier English to denote an adult female person
3. An old-fashioned term for a woman, surviving mainly in historical texts and dictionaries

Etymology: Old English "wifman" is a compound of "wif" (woman, wife) and "man" (person, human being), and it is the source of modern "woman." In the Old English period "man" did not yet mean only an adult male; it was a general word for a human being, which is why "wifman" could mean "female person." The word was a straightforward descriptive formation, built from two common native elements. Over time the first syllable was reshaped by sound changes. The "i" in "wif" caused the following vowel to shift, producing the Middle English form "wimman," and the vowel of the first syllable was then altered further, leaving "woman" by the 1400s. The spelling was largely fixed by the sixteenth century, though the pronunciation of the vowel still varies in some dialects. The plural followed a similar path. "Wifmen" became "wimmen" and eventually "women," which is why the plural is spelled with "o" while the singular is not, a tension that survives in spelling today.