Origin
In this context, the word wife means woman rather than married woman. This usage stems from Old English wif (woman) and is akin to the German Weib, also meaning "woman". This sense of the word is still used in Modern English in constructions such as midwife and fishwife.
Most old wives' tales are false and are used to discourage unwanted behavior, usually in children, or for folk cures for ailments ranging from a toothache to dysentery. Among the few tales with grains of truth, the veracity is likely coincidental.
The concept of old wives' tales is ancient. In the 1st century, the Apostle Paul wrote to his young protégé Timothy, "But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself unto godliness" (I Timothy 4:7 KJV).
Read more about this topic: Old Wives' Tale
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever re-creates man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The origin of storms is not in clouds,
our lightning strikes when the earth rises,
spillways free authentic power:
dead John Brown’s body walking from a tunnel
to break the armored and concluded mind.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)