Dictionary

vrouw en · NOUN

Etymology

Borrowed from Dutch vrouw. Doublet of frau, frow, and vrou.

Meanings

1. A Dutchwoman.
   • Those whose rank excluded them from a participation in the town deliberations drew closer to their firesides; the vrouws, both old and young, edged their seats nigher to each other[…] 1840, The United States magazine and Democratic review: Volume 7, page 158:
   • […] thrifty Dutch burghers and vrouwen are busy about town and home; […] 1917, Continent, page 1381:
   • But really I have never heard that the up-country vrouwen were in such a violent hurry for baftas and punjums but what the ox-wagons and local stores there could keep them supplied. 1968, R[alph] N[ixon] Currey, editor, Letters and Other Writings of a Natal Sheriff, Thomas Phipson 1815-76, Cape Town: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 171:
   • So the Vrouws, in a minuet, solemnly prance Like a bear, at a fair, that is tutor'd to dance. 1786, “Account of the India Guide”, in Walker's Hibernian magazine:
   • One by one those who had come to jeer slipped away, Pieter van der Byl murmuring incoherently of the hot sun and van der Heyden of the chilly evening, until finally Huysing turned abruptly from the pier and strode away, with a curt order to the waiting slaves to carry the vrouwen back to Zee Straat. 1913, Dorothea Fairbridge, That Which Hath Been, South Africa: T. Maskew Miller, page 309:
   • The Dutch vrouwen controlled their households as before, and governed their husbands with silken threads. 1898, Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer [i.e., May King Van Rensselaer], The Goede Vrouw of Mana-ha-ta at Home and in Society, 1609-1760, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 131:

Forms