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wed

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wedden (“to pledge; to marry”),[2][3][4] inherited from Old English weddian (“to engage, covenant; to betroth, marry”),[5][6][2][7] inherited from Proto-Germanic *wadjōną (“to pledge”),[8][9] a verb formed from the noun *wadją (“pledge”),[5][10][8] which also gave Old English wedd (“pledge, security”), the source of the dialect noun wed.[5][11][4] The verb is cognate with Old Frisian weddia (“to pledge, promise”), Middle Low German wedden, German wetten (“to bet, wager”), Old Norse veðja (“to pledge”) and Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍅𐌰𐌳𐌾𐍉𐌽 (gawadjōn, “to betroth, espouse”).[5][3][12][8] The noun is related to Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌳𐌹 (wadi, “pledge, earnest money”), German Wette (“bet, wager”) and Dutch wedde (“salary”),[5][10][3] and was borrowed into the Romance languages, giving English gage and wage.[5][11] Outside Germanic it is related to Latin vas (“surety, bail”) and Lithuanian vaduoti (“to redeem a pledge”),[5][3][8] which Watkins, cited by Etymonline, traces to Proto-Indo-European *wadh- (“to pledge, redeem a pledge”);[2][8] Boutkan, also cited there, suspects a substrate origin.[2] Kroonen reconstructs *Huodʰ-io- and explains the link with marriage from an older sense "to lead", the bride being led away to her husband's family.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To engage or covenant to do something: Old English, in the laws of Æthelstan, of a man who pledges to undergo an ordeal.[5][6] Old English laws also use it for making a woman one's wife by a pledge.[5]

Semantic evolution

The other Germanic languages kept the sense of pledging and betting (German wetten, to bet), while English alone narrowed the verb to marriage.[2][13] Weekley traces the marriage sense to the earlier sense of betrothal,[13] and Buck, quoted by Etymonline, explains it as first making a woman one's wife by giving a pledge or earnest money, then used of either party.[2] The oldest use is of a man taking a wife; the passive, to be married, appears in the Ormulum (about 1175), and the intransitive sense, to marry, in the Ancrene Riwle (early 13th century).[5][2][8] Of a woman taking a husband directly, it is found from the late 14th century.[2] Middle English could still use it for wager (Langland, 1362), a sense that lived on in Scottish and northern speech.[5][2] Weekley notes that Wycliffe always has wed, where Tyndale replaces it by marry;[13] the OED describes the verb as common in dialects but otherwise literary.[5] Chaucer already used it for attaching someone by affection to something (about 1397), the source of wedded to an opinion,[5] and Keats for joining one thing closely to another (1818).[5][2] Johnson (1755) gave "to marry; to take for husband or wife" as its first sense.[14]

Timeline

  • Old English – weddian, to engage, covenant, pledge; to betroth, marry.[5][6][8]
  • c. 1175 – passive, to be married, in the Ormulum.[5]
  • early 13th century – intransitive, to marry, in the Ancrene Riwle.[5][8]
  • 1362 – to wager, stake, in Piers Plowman.[5]
  • c. 1374 – to give a woman in marriage, in Chaucer's Troilus.[5]
  • c. 1397 – to attach by affection, chiefly wedded to.[5]
  • 1818 – to join closely, in Keats's Endymion.[5][2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (formal or literary) To take someone as husband or wife; to marry: She wed her childhood friend last spring.[15][4][16]
  2. To join two people in marriage; to perform the wedding ceremony for them.[15][4][5]
  3. To unite or combine closely: The design weds comfort with elegance.[15][16][5]
  4. be wedded to: to be firmly devoted or attached to an idea, activity or belief.[16][5]

Noun

  1. (Scotland and dialect) A pledge; a stake in a wager.[4][11][17]

Word family

  • interwed
  • newlywed
  • rewed
  • unwed
  • wedding
  • wedlock
  • gage
  • wage
  • wager

Usage notes

The past tense and past participle are usually wedded, also wed.[4][16] The OED notes that wed in the past tense is only dialectal, and that as a past participle it is common in dialect but otherwise rare except in poetry.[5] The Shorter Oxford calls the verb chiefly literary, dialectal or formal,[11] and in Scottish and Irish English it is also found in the form wad.[17]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  13. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ a b c d Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  17. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)