marriage
noun
Simple meaning
A union of two or more people that creates a family tie and carries legal, social, or religious rights and responsibilities.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mehrijSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmɛɹɪdʒ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A union of two or more people that creates a family tie and carries legal, social, or religious rights and responsibilities.
sometimes specifically
The union of only two people, to the exclusion of all others.
The state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for life (or until divorce)
often specifically
The union of two people of opposite sex, to the exclusion of all others.
A wedding; a ceremony in which people wed.
A close and intimate union
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A union of two or more people that creates a family tie and carries legal, social, or religious rights and responsibilities.
Used this way, marriage is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
- Religion/spirituality
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use marriage
- “His second marriage was happier than the first.”noun
- “Their marriage was conducted in the chapel.”noun
- “A long and happy marriage.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The bed shared by a newly wed couple.
Someone who arranges (or tries to arrange) marriages for others.
A business that arranges marriage contracts.
The act of marrying.
A prenuptial agreement or contract.
Counseling on marital problems and disagreements.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: union of two
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.