Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of unmarry.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The recently announced change in Census Bureau procedures, to recognize same-sex couples as married when they identify themselves that way, won't require much change on the Bureau's part -- they have been "unmarrying" these couples (in various ways) to comply with the Defense of Marriage Act. They have the data.

    Philip N. Cohen: Are You Really Married? (Hundreds of Thousands of Gay Couples Say They Are) 2009

  • In the context of the passage of California's Proposition 8, banning gay marriage and potentially unmarrying thousands of couples, look at Obama's speech on race, and construct a similar speech appropriate to the topic of marriage equality -- something that a California leader or potential leader could give that would appeal to people on both sides of the issue and motivate them to be kind and forgiving toward one another.

    Discourse.net: Snapshot 2008

  • I should have laughed at it just as much as an unmarrying man would.

    The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton 2006

  • A new court was established last year, and under the new statute, twenty and twenty-one Vic., cap. eighty-five, unmarrying is as easy as marrying.

    The Woodlanders 2006

  • They had been married so easily; there must be an easy way of unmarrying.

    We Can't Have Everything Rupert Hughes 1914

  • When I went to London, I had no idea of the matrimonial market; I should have laughed at it just as much as an unmarrying man would.

    The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton William Henry Burton Wilkins 1897

  • But with unmarrying women the case is different, and unmarried for the most part they remain, for man is often so weak-kneed a creature in matters of the heart, that he refrains from pursuing where an unsympathetic attitude discourages pursuit.

    The Nebuly Coat John Meade Falkner 1895

  • A new court was established last year, and under the new statute, twenty and twenty-one Vic., cap. eighty-five, unmarrying is as easy as marrying.

    The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy 1884

  • I have tried them all so many times, I know all the polygamous words and all the monogamous ones, and all the unmarrying ones, -- the whole lot that have no mates, -- as soon as I hear their names called.

    The Poet at the Breakfast-Table Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

  • I have tried them all so many times, I know all the polygamous words and all the monogamous ones, and all the unmarrying ones, -- the whole lot that have no mates, -- as soon as I hear their names called.

    Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

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