marriage of convenience
noun
Simple meaning
A marriage motivated by some reason other than love.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mehrihjuhvkuhnveenyuhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmɛɹɪˈdʒʌvkənˈvinjəns
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 marriage for expediency rather than love
A marriage motivated by some reason other than love; for example, one conducted to obtain residence rights in a country, for financial gain, or for political purposes.
figuratively
A big tent alliance of disparate factions (such as political factions).
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A marriage for expediency rather than love
Used this way, marriage of convenience is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Affectionate
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.