Marrying

How to spell marrying

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce marrying

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does marrying mean?

1. verbPresent participle of marry: joining with someone in marriage, or performing or arranging a wedding.

Marrying in a sentence

• They are marrying in a small chapel next spring.

• The registrar will be marrying three couples that afternoon.

Where does marrying come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the present participle and gerund of the verb 'marry', which English took from the Old French 'marier', meaning 'to wed' or 'to give in marriage'. That French verb descended from the Latin 'maritare', 'to marry', built on 'maritus', the word for a husband, which in turn relates to 'mas, maris', meaning 'a male'. English adopted the verb in the early 1300s, and the noun 'marriage' arrived alongside it from the same family. The doubled r in the spelling comes straight from the French and Latin forms, and it is the feature that catches writers out. A handy point to remember is that 'marry' keeps its y before the -ing ending (giving 'marrying'), because the rule that swaps y for i applies before -ed and -es, not before -ing.

How the word is built

• marry (from Latin maritare: to wed)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix); the final -y is kept before -ing rather than changed to -i-