1551: hussey Mar 13, 2019

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Several English words simply denoting women over time have changed to gain many negative connotations. This is true of 'hussy' which comes from a contraction of 'housewife' in Middle English. This by itself is not so strange given the number of other historical examples for which this similar process happens, but what is strange is that there are now two different words. 'Housewife' as the compound used in Modern English is a restoration of the original. The linguistic term for this sort of split is doublet.
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