Dictionary

child bride en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Northern-California) audio

Etymology

Compound of child + bride.

Meanings

1. A very young bride, usually coerced or pressured into nuptials with a much older man, as practiced in some cultures.
   • Saudi Arabia is one of the countries that allow minor girls to be child brides.
   • In this article she discusses the 1992 incident in which a Hyderabadi Muslim father sells his daughter as a child-bride to an Arab named Yahya Mohammed al-Sageih for Rs. 6000. 2008, Hafiza Nilofar Khan, The University of Southern Mississippi, Treatment of a wife's body in the fiction of Indian subcontinental women writers, page 46
   • Ohio, where she had peddled with her parents until she became a child bride to Salem's brother Khalil, in 1896 1993 Alixa Naf, Becoming American, page 142
   • With a smile and baksheesh for the little fair-faced girl destined to be the child-bride of some unknown Egyptian 1878, Frank Leslie's Sunday magazine, Volumes 3-4, page 206
   • Alone in [he]r tent the frightened child-bride [w]aits her husband, who will see her... [sic] ...for the first time. 1912, Metropolitan, Volume 36, page 1

Forms

Coordinates

child groom

Translations (12)

da barnebrud (very young bride) · ar عُرُوس طِفْلَة (very young bride) · it sposa bambina (very young bride) · pt noiva criança (very young bride) · cmn 童養媳 /童养媳 (very young bride) · es novia menor de edad (very young bride) · ru малоле́тняя неве́ста (very young bride) · es novia niña (very young bride) · nb barnebrud (very young bride) · nn barnebrud (very young bride) · fr enfant mariée (very young bride) · fi lapsimorsian (very young bride)