wedlock en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /ˈwɛd.lɒk/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /ˈwɛd.lɑk/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- (US) audio
Etymology
From Middle English wedlok, wedlocke (“wedlock, marriage, matrimony”), from Old English wedlāc (“marriage vow, pledge, plighted troth, wedlock”). By surface analysis, wed + -lock.
Meanings
-
(countable, uncountable) The state of being married.
If I were about to marry, I should try it; that is, if I were a student of girldom with a view to wedlock for in truth, I am a marrying man.
1871, Thomas Meehan, editor, Gardener's monthly and horticulturist:Nothing Jesus Christ more quemeth (pleaseth) Than love in wedlock where men it yemeth (keepeth);
1906, William Henry Schofield, English Literature:
-
(countable, obsolete, uncountable) A wife; a married woman.
What is it then but that desire which God put into Adam in Paradise before he knew the sin of incontinence; that desire which God saw it was not good that man should be left alone to burn in; the desire and longing to put off an unkindly solitarines by uniting another body, but not without a fit soule to his in the cheerfull society of wedlock.
1643, John Milton, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce:Which of these is thy Wedlock, Menelaus? thy Hellen? thy Lucrece? that we may do her Honour; mad Boy?
1601, Ben Jonson, The Poetaster:that lovely payre, / Enlincked fast in wedlockes loyall bond, / Bold Marinell with Florimell the fayre […]
1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| wedlocks | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Deriveds
out of wedlock · wedlocked · nonwedlock · break wedlock · bedlock