the.com/other half
The person you blame for the wet towel on the bed, forever.
means One's spouse or partner, regarded as completing a pair — the other member of a couple.
from Rooted in the old idea, traceable to Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium, that humans were once whole beings split in two, each half forever searching for its match. The English phrase itself settles into common use by the 1600s, borrowing that ancient notion of marriage as a reunion of split souls — though these days it's invoked less for cosmic wholeness and more for arguing over laundry.
- origin
- Victorian slang for spouse, oddly fitting
- math problem
- implies you were only 50 percent before
- usage tell
- said fondly or through gritted teeth
- modern twist
- now covers partners you never married