bridegroom

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bridegome, earlier brudgume,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English brȳdguma (“bridegroom; suitor”),^[5][6][7][8] a compound of brȳd (“bride”) and guma (“man”).^[7][6][8][9] The second part was later replaced by groom, then meaning a boy or lad, as guma fell out of use and the compound was no longer understood:^{[5][6][3][10]} Barnhart first finds “bridegrome” in Tyndale's Bible of 1526,^[3] Etymonline dates the change to the 16th century,^[6] and Ayto to the 14th.^[11] The Old English word continues Proto-Germanic *brūdigumô,^[12] a compound common to the Germanic languages:^[6][10] compare Old Saxon brūdigumo, Old Frisian breidgoma, Old High German brūtigomo (whence German Bräutigam), Dutch bruidegom, Old Norse brúðgumi, Swedish brudgumme and Danish brudgom.^[5][2][6] Gothic has no such compound and used instead Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌿𐌸𐍆𐌰𐌸𐍃 (bruþfaþs, “bride's lord”).^[5][6] Guma is from Proto-Germanic *gumô, also the source of 𐌲𐌿𐌼𐌰 (guma) and Old Norse gumi,^[13][6] and is cognate with Latin homō (“man”);^[2][13] it meant an earthly being, from a form of Proto-Indo-European *dhghem- (“earth”).^[6][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A man who is getting married: Barnhart finds Old English brīdguma about 750, in Cynewulf's Juliana,^[3] and the OED quotes it in the West Saxon Gospels (John 3:29), where it translates Latin sponsus.^[5][8][14] Bosworth–Toller also records the sense "suitor" in the Old English glossaries.^[8][15]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old English the word was used figuratively for Christ as the spouse of the Church or of the soul, first in the translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History;^[5] it is the sponsus of the Gospel parables, as in the Lindisfarne glosses.^[14] The Middle English form was bridgume in the Ormulum and bredgume in the Gospels,^[4] and Barnhart finds bridgume about 1200 and bridegome before 1300.^[3] When gome "man" grew rare in Middle English, the second element was remade after groom, and the older forms are rare after the Middle English period.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "a new married man", quoting Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.^[16] A verb, to give a woman in marriage or of a man to marry her, is recorded from 1846.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 750 – Old English brīdguma, bridegroom, in Cynewulf's Juliana.^[3]
• Old English – Christ as the heavenly bridegroom, in the translation of Bede.^[5]
• c. 1200 – Middle English bridgume.^[3][4]
• before 1300 – bridegome.^[3]
• 1526 – bridegrome, with the second part remade after groom, in Tyndale's Bible.^[3]
• 1846 – verb, to give in marriage or to marry.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A man on his wedding day, or one who is about to be married or has just been married: The bridegroom waited nervously at the altar.^[10][5][17]
2. (figurative) In Christian use, Christ seen as the spiritual spouse of the church or of a believer.^[5]

Verb

1. To give a woman in marriage; of a man, to take as a wife.^[5]

Related words

• bride
• groom
• human

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Cook, Albert S. (1894), A Glossary of the Old Northumbrian Gospels, Halle: Niemeyer
15. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins