Definition of "marry" in English

verb

1. (intransitive) To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife.

   • Neither of her daughters showed any desire to marry.
   • Evelyn, in his "Diary," under date 1641, says that at Haerlem "they showed us a cottage where, they told us, dwelt a woman who had been married to her twenty-fifth husband, and, being now a widow, was prohibited to marry in future; […] "

2. (intransitive) To enter into marriage with one another.

   • Jack and Jenny married soon after they met.

3. (transitive) To take as husband or wife.

   • In some cultures, it is acceptable for an uncle to marry his niece.

4. (transitive) To arrange for the marriage of; to give away as wife or husband.

   • He was eager to marry his daughter to a nobleman.

5. (transitive) 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.

   • A justice of the peace will marry Jones and Smith.
   • His daughter was married some five years ago to a tailor's apprentice.

6. (intransitive, figuratively, of inanimate or abstract things) To join or connect. See also marry up.

   • 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.

7. (transitive, figuratively) To unite; to join together into a close union.

   • The attempt to marry medieval plainsong with speed metal produced interesting results.

8. (nautical) To place (two ropes) alongside each other so that they may be grasped and hauled on at the same time.

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

interjection

1. (obsolete) A term of asseveration: indeed!, in truth!