left-handed wife:

1. A morganatic wife . Defined by Captain Francis Grose in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811) as: ' A concubine ; an allusion to an ancient German custom, aoccoring to which, when a man married his concubine , or a woman greatly his inferior, he gave her his left hand .' See wife for synonyms.

2. A mistress . See mistress for synonyms.

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