My wife is unwell and cannot come today; I hope you will forgive her.
Tips
culture
荆 comes from 荆钗, a hairpin of thorn wood. 孟光, the famously frugal wife of the Eastern Han recluse 梁鸿, wore one, so ‘my clumsy thorn-pin’ became a humble way to say ‘my wife’.
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Very old-fashioned: heard today in costume dramas or as a joke. Everyday words are 妻子 and 老婆. Other humble words of the same kind: 拙作 ‘my humble work’, 拙见 ‘my humble opinion’.
