mar ‧ ry S1 W2 /ˈmæri/ BrE AmE verb ( past tense and past participle married , present participle marrying , third person singular marries )
[ Word Family: verb : ↑ marry , ↑ remarry ; noun : ↑ marriage , ↑ remarriage ; adjective : ↑ married ≠ ↑ unmarried , ↑ marriageable ]
[ Date: 1200-1300 ; Language: French ; Origin: marier , from Latin maritare , from maritus 'husband' ]
1 . [intransitive and transitive] if you marry someone, you become their husband or wife ⇨ married :
He married Bea in 1925.
I’m going to ask her to marry me on St Valentine’s Day.
She married young (=at a young age) .
People in higher social classes are more likely to marry late (=when they are older than is usual) .
Sophia had, in a sense, married beneath her (=married someone of a lower social class than her) .
REGISTER
In everyday English, rather than saying that two people marry , people usually say that they get married.
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My parents got married in 1986.
2 . [transitive] to perform the ceremony at which two people get married:
The priest who married us was really nice.
3 . [transitive] to find a husband or wife for one of your children
marry somebody to somebody
She was determined to marry all of her daughters to rich men.
4 . [transitive] ( also marry up ) formal to combine two different ideas, designs, tastes etc together
marry something with/to something
The building’s design marries a traditional style with modern materials.
marry something and something
He writes fiction that marries up realism and the supernatural.
5 . not the marrying kind not the type of person who wants to get married:
I’m just not the marrying kind.
marry into something phrasal verb
to join a family or social group by marrying someone who belongs to it:
She married into a very wealthy family.
marry somebody ↔ off phrasal verb
to find a husband or wife for someone – used in order to show disapproval
marry somebody ↔ off to
They married her off to the first young man who came along.