ale-wife

English

Noun

ale-wife (plural ale-wives)

1. Alternative form of alewife (woman who sells ale)
   • 1592, William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew:

     Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not : if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom.

   • 1885, Lives of the Queens of England:

     The ale-wife was a very good woman; she put the poor girl to bed, gave her food and a great deal of pity when she heard " how the wicked roundhead troopers had killed her father, because he loved king Charles, and burnt her home and village, so that she was destitute and houseless;" but the young lady never told her true name and rank.

   • 1987, Judith M. Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside:

     On the average, ale-wives worked in commercial brewing for about two decades, yet during that period they brewed irregularly and often stopped brewing for considerable lengths of time. Usually an ale-wife sold ale on only about one-third of the occasions available to her.

   • 2004, Katie Normington, Gender and Medieval Drama, page 120:

     Perhaps then the punishment of the Chester ale-wife was intended to be a real warning to women traders. If this is the case, then the Chester ale-wife transcends the boundary of comedy, and her appearance shows a real fear of working women's threat to the market.