WEDLOCK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wedlock mean? 

• WEDLOCK (noun)
  The noun WEDLOCK has 1 sense:

1. the state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for life (or until divorce)

  Familiarity information: WEDLOCK used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WEDLOCK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for life (or until divorce)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

marriage; matrimony; spousal relationship; union; wedlock

Context example:

God bless this union

Hypernyms ("wedlock" is a kind of...):

marital status (the condition of being married or unmarried)

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wedlock"):

bigamy (the state of having two spouses at the same time)

common-law marriage (a marriage relationship created by agreement and cohabitation rather than by ceremony)

endogamy; inmarriage; intermarriage (marriage within one's own tribe or group as required by custom or law)

exogamy; intermarriage (marriage to a person belonging to a tribe or group other than your own as required by custom or law)

marriage of convenience (a marriage for expediency rather than love)

misalliance (an unsuitable alliance (especially with regard to marriage))

monandry (the state of having only one husband at a time)

monogamousness; monogamy (the practice or state of having only one spouse at a time)

open marriage (a marriage in which each partner is free to enter into extraneous sexual relationships without guilt or jealousy from the other)

cuckoldom (the state of a husband whose wife has committed adultery)

polygamy (the condition or practice of having more than one spouse at a time)

sigeh (a Shiite tradition of temporary marriage permitted in Iran that allows a couple to specify the terms of their relationship; can last from a few minutes to 99 years)

 Context examples 

I joined them because Margery Alspaye, of Bolder, married Crooked Thomas of Ringwood, and left a certain John of Hordle in the cold, for that he was a ranting, roving blade who was not to be trusted in wedlock.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

How the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully; how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on account of those pecuniary liabilities, in reference to which he had been so business-like as between man and man; how Janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper; and how my aunt had finally set her seal on the same great principle, by aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the marriage-ceremony with her presence; were among our topics—already more or less familiar to me through the letters I had had.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)