sieva

See also: sievā and sievä

English

Noun

sieva (plural sievas)

  1. A small variety of lima bean.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for sieva in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

Latvian
Vīrs un sieva

Etymology

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *śéiwāˀ, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱéy-wos, from *ḱey- (“be located; camp, settlement; friendly; from the same home”) with a suffix -wā (from the same stem also Latvian saime (“household”)). The semantic change seems to have been “friendly settlement or household member” > “woman”. Cognate with Sanskrit शेव (śéva, “dear, friendly, honored”), Gothic 𐌷𐌴𐌹𐍅𐌰-𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌿𐌾𐌰 (heiwa-frauja, “master of the house”), Old High German hiwa (“wife”), hi(w)o (“spouse; servant”), Latin civis (“citizen”) (previously “household member”, “villager”). As Latvian sieva gradually shifted its basic meaning to “wife”, a new term sieviete (“woman”) was coined (in the 19th century).[1]

Pronunciation

IPA(key): [sīɛ̄va]

Noun

sieva f (4th declension)

  1. wife (married woman; woman with respect to her husband)
    vīrs un sieva ― husband and wife
    nolūkot sievu ― to look for a wife
    ņemt, apņemt sievu ― to take a wife (= to get married)
    sievas vecāki ― wife's parents
    viņa jau divus gadus ir sieva ― she has been a wife for two years
    viņam nav sievas ― he doesn't have a wife
  2. woman
    sievu koris ― women's choir
    tirgus sieva ― market woman (who sells at the market)
    istabā ienāca kāda sieva ― some woman came into the room

Declension
Declension of sieva (4th declension)
singular (vienskaitlis) plural (daudzskaitlis)
nominative (nominatīvs) sieva sievas
accusative (akuzatīvs) sievu sievas
genitive (ģenitīvs) sievas sievu
dative (datīvs) sievai sievām
instrumental (instrumentālis) sievu sievām
locative (lokatīvs) sievā sievās
vocative (vokatīvs) sieva sievas

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

References
  1. Karulis, Konstantīns (1992), “sieva”, in Latviešu Etimoloģijas Vārdnīca (in Latvian), Rīga: AVOTS, →ISBN
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