Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The state of being married; matrimony.
- idiom (out of wedlock) Of parents not legally married to each other.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To unite in marriage; marry.
- noun Marriage; matrimony; the married state; the vows and sacrament of marriage. Sometimes used attributively.
- noun A wife.
- noun Synonyms Matrimony, Wedding, etc. See
marriage .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb rare To marry; to unite in marriage; to wed.
- noun The ceremony, or the state, of marriage; matrimony.
- noun obsolete A wife; a married woman.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The state of being
married ;matrimony .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for life (or until divorce)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The President would give away his first born (in wedlock and wanted) grandchild to some sucker representative to bring in the hold out state andbingo!
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I was born in wedlock, but all I can get from the state is a COLB, and I was born in the 1950s.
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In return, he craved my antecedents and residence, pried into my private life, insolently demanded how many children had I and did I live in wedlock, and asked divers other unseemly and degrading questions.
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In fact — figure it out for yourself — they were actually married, by a Church of England dominie, and living in wedlock, about the same moment that you were squalling your first post-birth squalls in this world.
CHAPTER XIV 2010
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Having extra marital affairs out of wedlock is a way of promoting family values, according to the Republican dictionary.
Statement: Senator's parents 'made gifts' to mistress's family 2009
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Do we want the sort of rigid social mores where a child born out of wedlock is a scandal, so the baby is snatched away at birth, and the mother sent to live in an institution for the unsound of mind?
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I wonder what it is you ejaculate when performing your Church-approved, monogamous, heterosexual intercourse (missionary position and in wedlock only, please!), nothing but hot air?
Official First Look: Sean Penn as Harvey Milk « FirstShowing.net 2008
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This time, she plays a lady doctor who (among many other things) gets pregnant out of wedlock from the hunky and married Lyle Talbot.
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I can tell you where most of them aren't: in wedlock with the woman they spent a season wooing.
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Having a child out of wedlock is indeed not d end of the world.
qroqqa commented on the word wedlock
The only survivor in Modern English of the Old English action noun suffix -lác. This may have been a noun "play" and originated in compounds meaning "sword-play" for "battle".
June 1, 2009
fbharjo commented on the word wedlock
lark and knowledge are the other two common remnants of this OE substantival word suffix
June 1, 2009
qroqqa commented on the word wedlock
Possible in the case of knowledge, with its completely mysterious second element—I suppose the older -leche could come from palatalization of a Northern form -leik of the -lock suffix, though the OED does not raise this possibility.
Shurely shome mishtake with lark, which though equally mysterious does not admit of anything like *-lak. The v in OE láferce might have been Norse influence; other old forms include OE láwerce, OHG lêrahha, ON lǽvirke, and this suffix won't fit in there.
The 'Rohirric' word dwimmerlaik in Tolkien's works is a use of a genuine (extinct) English word with the suffix.
June 1, 2009
fbharjo commented on the word wedlock
frolic(h)'s suffix surely must be related to words of this suffix.
June 3, 2009