shotgun wedding en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Etymology
From the implication that the groom was forced to the altar by shotgun-wielding relatives of the bride.
Meanings
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(idiomatic, slang) A wedding in which the bride is already pregnant.
If Red Skelton's joke can still elicit laughs, it is only because there is a minority who can still remember a shotgun wedding and even recall the understandings that lay behind that insistence, now seeming quaint, that a couple sleeping together should really be married.
2012, Charles W. Dunn, American Culture in Peril, University Press of Kentucky, →ISBN, page 48:
- (idiomatic, slang) A wedding made in haste or under duress.
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(idiomatic, slang) Any similarly reputedly forced partnership, between people, organizations, components, or concepts.
But all this fails when we try to have a shotgun wedding between the two great theories of nature, relativity and quantum theory.
2021, Michio Kaku, The God Equation:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| shotgun weddings | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Relateds
grass widow · shotgun marriage · white wedding
Translations (21)
sh morala se udati (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · de sie mussten heiraten (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · pl ślub pod przymusem z ciężarną kobietą (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · de Mussehe (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · cy priodas orfod (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · cmn 奉子成婚 (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · ja でき婚 (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · cy priodas glec (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · sh venčanje sačmaricom (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · nl moetje (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · es (matrimonio) penalti/penalty m casarse de penalti/penalty (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · fi haulikkohäät (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · it matrimonio riparatore (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · sh vjenčanje sačmaricom (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · ko 속도위반 결혼 (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · fr mariage précipité (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · ga pósadh práinne (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · de Mussheirat (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · de Musshochzeit (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · ja できちゃった結婚 (wedding in which the bride is pregnant) · ru брак по залёту (wedding in which the bride is pregnant)