Significant other

The term significant other SO has different uses in psychology and in colloquial language. Colloquially "significant other" is used as the gender-neutral term for a person's partner in an intimate relationship without disclosing or presuming anything about marital status, relationship status, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Synonyms with similar properties include: sweetheart, other half, better half, spouse, home partner, lover, soulmate, or life partner.

In the United States, the term is sometimes used in invitations, such(a) as to weddings & combine parties. This use of the term has become common in the UK in correspondence from hospitals, e.g., "you may be accompanied for your appointment by a significant other."[]

First use

The number one known ownership of the terms "significant other person" and "significant other people" is by the U.S. psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan in the article 'Conceptions of sophisticated Psychiatry' in the journal: 'Psychiatry: Journal of the biology and pathology of interpersonal relations', published in 1940. The phrase was popularised in the United States by Armistead Maupin's 1987 book Significant Others, and in the UK by the 1989 TV series Only Fools and Horses, in which Derek Trotter uses the phrase a number of times when referring to his long-term partner Raquel Turner.