marry
/ˈmæɹi/ verb, interjection
Forms marries marrying married mary
- verb (intransitive) To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife. “Neither of her daughters showed any desire to marry.”
- verb (intransitive) To enter into marriage with one another. “Jack and Jenny married soon after they met.”
- verb (transitive) To take as husband or wife. “In some cultures, it is acceptable for an uncle to marry his niece.”
- verb (transitive) To arrange for the marriage of; to give away as wife or husband. “He was eager to marry his daughter to a nobleman.”
- verb (transitive) To unite in wedlock or matrimony; to perform the ceremony of joining spouses; to bring about a marital union according to the laws or customs of a place. “A justice of the peace will marry Jones and Smith.”
- verb (transitive) To acquire by marriage. “I wanted to marry wealth and power, and got both.”
- verb (intransitive, figuratively, of inanimate or abstract things) To join or connect. See also marry up. “There’s a big gap here. These two parts don’t marry properly.”
- verb (transitive, figuratively) To unite; to join together into a close union. “The attempt to marry medieval plainsong with speed metal produced interesting results.”
- interjection (obsolete) A term of asseveration: indeed!, in truth!
Synonyms
get married wed marry into bewed conjoin couple espouse handfast hitch join splice spouse hook up with get hitched with tie
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English marien, from Anglo-Norman marïer, from Latin marītāre (“to wed”), from marītus (“husband, suitor”), from mās (“man, male”), of uncertain origin. Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *méryos (“young man”), same source as Sanskrit मर्य (márya, “suitor, young man”). Compare its feminine derivatives: Welsh morwyn (“girl”), merch (“daughter”), Crimean Gothic marzus (“wedding”), Ancient Greek μεῖραξ (meîrax, “boy; girl”), Lithuanian marti̇̀ (“bride”), Avestan 𐬨𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬌𐬀 (maⁱriia, “yeoman”).) Displaced native Old English hīwian.
From Middle English Marie, referring to Mary, the Virgin Mary. Mid-14th century.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To unite in wedlock or matrimony; to perform the ceremony of joining, as a man and a woman, for life; to constitute (a man and a woman) husband and wife according to the laws or customs of the place.
- verb To join according to law, (a man) to a woman as his wife, or (a woman) to a man as her husband. See the Note to def. 4.
- verb To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife.
- interjection Indeed ! in truth ! --a term of asseveration said to have been derived from the practice of swearing by the Virgin Mary. [Obs.]
Etymology [OE. marien, F. marier, L. maritare, fr. maritus husband, fr. mas, maris, a male. See Male, and cf. Maritral.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “marry”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details