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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

marry.

To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈmæɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmæɹi//ˈmɛɹi//ˈmæɹi/Australia
  1. To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife.

    intransitive
    Neither of her daughters showed any desire to marry.
    I forfeited my inheritance and married outside my parents' faith.
  2. To enter into marriage with one another.

    intransitive
    Jack and Jenny married soon after they met.
  3. To take as husband or wife.

    transitive
    In some cultures, it is acceptable for an uncle to marry his niece.
  4. To arrange for the marriage of; to give away as wife or husband.

    transitive
    He was eager to marry his daughter to a nobleman.
  5. To unite in wedlock or matrimony; to perform the ceremony of joining spouses; to bring about a marital union according to the laws or customs of a place.

    transitive
    A justice of the peace will marry Jones and Smith.
    His daughter was married some five years ago to a tailor's apprentice.
  6. To acquire by marriage.

    transitive
    I wanted to marry wealth and power, and got both.
  7. To join or connect. See also marry up.

    figuratively · intransitive
    There’s a big gap here. These two parts don’t marry properly.
    I can’t connect it, because the plug doesn’t marry with the socket.
  8. To unite; to join together into a close union.

    figuratively · transitive
    The attempt to marry medieval plainsong with speed metal produced interesting results.
  9. To place (two ropes) alongside each other so that they may be grasped and hauled on at the same time.

  10. To join (two ropes) end to end so that both will pass through a block.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English marien, from Anglo-Norman marïer, from Latin marītāre (“to wed”), from marītus (“husband, suitor”), from mās (“man, male”), of uncertain origin. Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *méryos (“young man”), same source as Sanskrit मर्य (márya, “suitor, young man”). Compare its feminine derivatives: Welsh morwyn (“girl”), merch (“daughter”), Crimean Gothic marzus (“wedding”), Ancient Greek μεῖραξ (meîrax, “boy; girl”), Lithuanian marti̇̀ (“bride”), Avestan 𐬨𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬌𐬀 (maⁱriia, “yeoman”).) Displaced native Old English hīwian.

intj/ˈmæɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmæɹi//ˈmɛɹi//ˈmæɹi/Australia
  1. A term of asseveration: indeed!, in truth!

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English Marie, referring to Mary, the Virgin Mary. Mid-14th century.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.