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  1. polyandry love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. The condition or practice of having more than one husband at one time.
  2. n. Zoology A mating pattern in which a female mates with more than one male in a single breeding season.
  3. n. Botany The condition of being polyandrous.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. The state of having more husbands than one at the same time; plurality of husbands. Polyandry is believed to have had its origin in unfertile regions, in an endeavor to check the undue pressure of population on the means of subsistence. It formerly prevailed to some extent in Europe, and is now observed in Tibet, Ceylon, parts of India, among certain tribes in America and the islands of the Pacific, etc. It is sometimes limited to the marriage of the woman to two or more brothers.

Wiktionary

  1. n. : The having of a plurality of husbands at the same time; usually, the marriage of a woman to more than one man, or the practice of having several husbands, at the same time.
  2. n. : The mating pattern whereby a female copulates with plural males.
  3. n. general : Sexual relations with plural males, by a female or a male, human or non-human, within or without marriage.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The possession by a woman of more than one husband at the same time; -- contrasted with monandry.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. having more than one husband at a time

Etymologies

  1. poly- + -andry. (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “But in fact “polygamy” means having more than one spouse at a time, including both polygyny and polyandry, which is having more than one male spouse at a time.”

    TRIVIALIZING BETRAYAL? » Sociological Images

  • “The man alone has any initiative; but he has no access to the woman; besides, as we have seen, the difficulty created by male license is not polygyny but polyandry, which is not allowed.”

    Getting Married

  • “Comment Good news for fans of polyandry, which is the practice ...”

    WN.com - Business News

  • “The answer could be the fuss in the press and in various media outlets about whether the series is promoting polyandry, which is prohibited by Islamic legislation and Egyptian law.”

    Al-Ahram Weekly Online

  • “In a situation like this, it is doubtful that any solution would be better than polyandry, which is, after all, an optional solution.”

    Achelois: a retired goddess

  • “Pāṇḍava brethren; how the Pāṇḍavas were ousted by the Kauravas from the kingdom, the eldest Pāṇḍava prince Yudhishṭhira having been induced to stake the fortunes of himself and his brethren on a game of dice, in which he was defeated; how the five Pāṇḍavas, with their common wife Draupadī (observe this curious and ugly feature of polyandry, which is quite opposed to standard Hindu morals, but is by no means unparalleled in early Indian literature [20]) retired into exile for thirteen years, and then came back with a great army of allies, and after fierce and bloody battles with the Kauravas and their supporters in the plain of Kurukshētra at last gained the victory, slew the Kauravas, and established Yudhishṭhira as king in”

    Hindu Gods And Heroes Studies in the History of the Religion of India

  • “If this trend continues, it is feared that number of girls will drastically reduce, distorting the fabric of society and leading to many social deviant patterns such as polyandry, trafficking and forced marriages, according to a government press statement.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Can Conditional Cash Transfers Work in Rural India?

  • “But I'm exceptionally amused by polygamy sites which say they do not support 'polyandry', where one wife has more than one husband at the same time.”

    March 15th, 2004

  • “Rivers adduces a considerable number of similarities between Toda institutions and those of the Malabar coast (such as polyandry and other marriage institutions), and this agreement, as far as it goes, may point to a common culture throughout a part of Southern India; [1910] the early history of these tribes is, however, obscure.”

    Introduction to the History of Religions Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV

  • “Where this happens, a kind of polyandry is formed, which we find more fully displayed in Thibet, and on the lofty mountains at the extremity of the Indian peninsula.”

    Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America

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antonyms (1)

Words with the opposite meaning

  1. monandry

hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. polygamy

same context (24)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. polygamist
  2. polygamy
  3. polygyny
  4. Evelyn
  1. monogamy
  2. government-in-exile
  3. bigamy
  4. snow-blindness
  1. concubinage
  2. infanticide
  3. cognation
  4. bachelorhood
  1. unreserve
  2. d'aubaine
  3. behold
  4. euthanasia
  1. Daphnis
  2. andnot
  3. villeinage
  4. fistfight
  1. matricide
  2. creampie
  3. tantra
  4. lamasery

rhymes (1)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. Landry

reverse dictionary (8)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. polygamy
  1. polyandria
  1. polyandric
  1. polyandrist
  1. adelphogamy
  1. Aug2
  1. polyandrous
  1. monandry

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  • john "Will the French public accept a woman who espouses polyandry, has a son by a philosopher whose father she once also dated, and who has been romantically linked with Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger?"
    - The New York Times, January 13, 2008 Jan 13, 2008

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‘polyandry’ has been looked up 1622 times, loved by 1 person, added to 19 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 18.