vrouw

See also: -vrouw

English

Etymology

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

Noun

vrouw (plural vrouws or vrouwen)

1. A Dutchwoman.
   • 1786, “Account of the India Guide”, in Walker's Hibernian magazine:

     So the Vrouws, in a minuet, solemnly prance
     Like a bear, at a fair, that is tutor'd to dance.

   • 1840, The United States magazine and Democratic review: Volume 7, page 158:

     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 […]

   • 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:

     The Dutch vrouwen controlled their households as before, and governed their husbands with silken threads.

   • 1913, Dorothea Fairbridge, That Which Hath Been, South Africa: T. Maskew Miller, page 309:

     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.

   • 1917, Continent, page 1381:

     […] thrifty Dutch burghers and vrouwen are busy about town and home; […]

   • 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:

     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.

Dutch

Een blonde vrouw.
A blonde woman.

Etymology

From Middle Dutch vrouwe, from Old Dutch frouwa, from Proto-West Germanic *frauwjā, from Proto-Germanic *frawjǭ. Vrouw replaced wijf as a neutral descriptor for a woman in the Early Modern period (see there for more), whereas vrouw mostly referred to well-off or aristocratic women in Middle Dutch. (In this latter sense, vrouw was itself superseded by dame, although the archaic form vrouwe is fossilized with the same aristocratic meaning.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vrɑu̯/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: vrouw
• Rhymes: -ɑu̯

Noun

vrouw f (plural vrouwen, diminutive vrouwtje n or vrouwetje n or vrouwke n)

1. woman
2. wife

   Synonym: echtgenote

Usage notes

• As with English woman, usage of this word as a term of address (typically reserved for the sense "wife") is now mostly considered dated and somewhat patronizing (albeit not as offensive as the diminutive vrouwtje), particularly when said by a man to a woman.
• Despite the above, among some women a different, positive usage as term of address (referring to the sense "woman") is gaining ground, as in:

Vrouw, wat zie je er goed uit! ― Girl, you look so good today!

This usage is similar to the usage of girl as a term of address among women and girls in English, albeit the Dutch term is used mostly by adult women among themselves. In this sense it is unlike similar terms of address such as meid, which is applicable to both women and girls and is commonly used by both genders.

Derived terms

• bijvrouw
• brandweervrouw
• huisvrouw
• mevrouw
• moeder de vrouw
• politievrouw
• powervrouw
• raadsvrouw
• topvrouw
• tuinvrouw
• vrouwelijk
• vrouwlief
• wereldvrouw
• zeevrouw

 

Related terms

• vroon
• vrouwe

 

Descendants

• Afrikaans: vrou
  • → English: vrou
• Negerhollands: vro, vrou, frou, fru, vrow
  • → Virgin Islands Creole: fru (dated)
• → Aukan: folow
• → English: vrouw
• → Sranan Tongo: frow
• → Indonesian: perawan (“virgin”)