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Spouse

Kinship
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A person's husband, wife, or legally recognized marital partner. The term is gender-neutral and formal.

Detailed Definition
A spouse is a person joined to another in marriage, regardless of gender. In poetry, the word can sound formal, legal, tender, or deliberately restrained, depending on context, and it often marks the crossing between private devotion and public commitment. A speaker may call someone a spouse when considering vows, shared property, caregiving, estrangement, widowhood, or the ordinary rituals through which two lives become mutually accountable over time.
Example
Example in poetry:
“My spouse folds dusk into the laundry basket,” uses a domestic image to make marriage tangible; A speaker can call a spouse “my chosen home” to emphasize companionship over legal formality; “Beside my spouse, even the winter table warms” links partnership to emotional shelter; Addressing “beloved spouse” in an elegy can make grief immediate and intimate
Additional Notes
Spouse is a formal, gender-neutral term for either member of a marriage. In poetry, it may suggest legal commitment as well as intimacy, companionship, or distance. Related terms include husband, wife, and partner.
Also Known As
Mate Marital Partner Better half fere Husband Wife
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