Married

How to spell married

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce married

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does married mean?

1. adjectiveJoined to someone as husband, wife, or spouse.
2. verbPast tense and past participle of marry: to have taken someone as a spouse.

Married in a sentence

• adjective

  The couple have been happily married for thirty years.

• verb

  They married in a small chapel near the coast.

• adjective

  Only married employees qualify for the family health plan.

• verb

  The priest who married my parents retired last spring.

Where does married come from?

Language of origin: French

This word descends from the verb 'marry', which English took from the Old French 'marier', itself drawn from the Latin 'maritare', meaning 'to give in marriage' or 'to wed'. That Latin verb was built on 'maritus', a noun and adjective meaning 'husband' or 'married', which some scholars connect to an ancient root suggesting 'young woman' or 'provided with a mate'. English adopted 'marry' in the 1200s, and the past form 'married' has been written this way ever since the spelling settled. The familiar trap lives in the suffix: because 'marry' ends in a consonant followed by 'y', the 'y' turns to 'i' before '-ed', giving 'married' rather than 'marryed'. The same root survives in the word 'marital', and in the older title 'marriage', which keeps the doubled 'r' that writers must remember to carry over.

How the word is built

• marri- (from marry, to take a spouse)
• -ed (past tense / past participle ending, with y changed to i)