marriage

Meaning

Noun

• A union of two or more people that creates a family tie and carries legal, social, and/or religious rights and responsibilities.
• A wedding; a ceremony in which people wed.
• A close union.
• A joining of two parts.
• A king and a queen, when held as a hand in some versions of poker or melded in pinochle.
• In solitaire or patience games, the placing a card of the same suit on the next one above or below it in value.
• A homosexual relationship between male prisoners.

Related

Similar words

• matrimony
• wedding
• civil union

Opposite words

• divorce

Narrower meaning words

• wedlease

Origin

• From Middle English mariage, from Old French mariage, from marier, from Latin marītō, from maritus, from mas. Equivalent to marry + -age. maritage. Displaced native .