Etymology

Proper noun

1. The long-suffering wife of a nobleman in a medieval tale.
2. used in Middle Ages, but rather rare today.

Quotations

• 1951 translation by Nevill Coghill of: 13?? Geoffrey Chaucer: Canterbury Tales: Chaucer's Envoy to the Clerk's Tale:

  Husbands, be not so hardy as to assail

  The patience of your wives in hope to find

  Griseldas, for you certainly will fail.