spousal

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English spousaille, also sposail,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French spousaille, the Anglo-Norman form, an aphetic variant of esposaille,^[5][2][6][7] the source of espousal.^[5][2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged names Middle French espousailles as the source.^[3] The French word comes from Latin spōnsālia (“betrothal”), the neuter plural of spōnsālis (“of marriage”), from spōnsus, the past participle of spondeō (“to pledge”).^[4][2] The adjective is partly formed from English spouse + -al and partly the noun used as an adjective.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of marrying, or the celebration of a marriage or betrothal, in the plural: before 1325, in the Statutes of the Realm.^[5] Etymonline dates the word to about 1300, as a wedding ceremony and the state of being married,^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 13th century,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1250–1300.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The Anglo-Norman word was already used from the early 12th century for a wedding, the sacrament of marriage, the married state and a mystical marriage to God.^[8] In Middle English spousals, the celebration of a marriage, was common, and it lingered as an archaism into the 19th century.^[2] From 1340, in the Ayenbite of Inwit, the noun also meant the married state, wedlock, a sense obsolete after 1885,^[5][6] and figuratively a union likened to a marriage, especially the symbolic marriage of the soul to God.^[5] In the Wycliffite Bible it meant a wedding gift or dowry, after the Latin of the Vulgate.^[5] The adjective, "of or relating to marriage", is recorded from before 1450 in the OED,^[5] from the 1510s in Etymonline;^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as nuptial, matrimonial, conjugal, and quoted Shakespeare's "spousal rites".^[9] From 1596 it was used of a poem or hymn celebrating a marriage,^[5] and later also of a spouse or spouses.^[5] The noun is now chiefly historical.^[5]

Timeline

• before 1325 – noun, in the plural, the action of marrying; a wedding or betrothal.^[5]
• c. 1330 – the same in the singular; a wedding ceremony.^[5]
• 1340 – the married state, wedlock (obsolete by 1885); a union likened to a marriage, especially with God.^[5]
• before 1382 – a wedding gift, a dowry (obsolete by 1500).^[5]
• before 1450 – adjective, of or relating to marriage.^[5] Etymonline dates it to the 1510s.^[2]
• 1596 – adjective, of a poem, celebrating a marriage.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (often plural) A marriage ceremony; a wedding or betrothal.^[10][3][5]
2. The act of marrying or espousing.^[3][5]
3. (obsolete, 1340–1885) The married state; wedlock.^[3][5][6]

Adjective

1. Of or relating to marriage; nuptial, matrimonial: spousal vows.^[10][3][5]
2. Of or relating to a spouse: a spousal pension.^[5]
3. Celebrating a marriage: a spousal hymn.^[3][5]

Word family

• spousally
• interspousal

Related words

• spouse
• espouse
• espousal

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins