BETROTH • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Betroth

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

verb

Betroth v. t. (past & past part. betrothed; pres. part. betrothing)

To contract to any one for a marriage; to engage or promise in order to marriage; to affiance; used esp. of a woman. "He, in the first flower of my freshest age, Betrothed me unto the only heir." "Ay, and we are betrothed."

To promise to take (as a future spouse); to plight one's troth to. "What man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her?"

To nominate to a bishopric, in order to consecration.

See images of 'Betroth'

Etymology of 'Betroth'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Betroth" Quotes from Famous Books

... of a girl who is not married before puberty are fined. The proposal comes from the boy's side and a bride-price is usually paid, though not of large amount. The Halia Telis of Chhattisgarh, like other agricultural castes, sometimes betroth their children when they are five or six months old, but as a rule no penalty attaches to the breaking of the betrothal. The betrothal is celebrated by the distribution of one or two rupees' worth of liquor to the neighbours ...

— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... attentions upon the beautiful widow.[189] Nor was this the only trouble which threatened the lovers. There were reports that the French would not let Mary go, but marry her somewhere to serve their own political purposes.[190] Henry, too, might want to betroth her again to Charles; Maximilian was urging this course, and telling Margaret that Mary must be recovered for Charles, even at the point of the sword.[191] Early in January, Wolsey had written to her, warning her not to make any fresh promise ...

— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... constantly regarded as affairs of state, to be arranged for political reasons, that it had become usual on the Continent to betroth princes and princesses to each other at a very early age; and it was therefore not considered as denoting any premature impatience on the part of either the Empress-queen or the King of France, Louis XV., when, at the beginning of 1769, when Marie Antoinette had but just completed ...

— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... Nord-Teutschland, cradle of one's existence; Brunswick reminiscences; news of your Imperial Majesty's serene Father, serene Sister, Brother-in-law the Feldmarschall and Insipid Niece whom we have had the satisfaction to betroth ...

— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... 'Let Hallgerda betroth herself,' said Hrut, when they had told her what terms had been arranged, and that Glum should bring goods or money to an equal value to Hallgerda's, and that they two should ...

— The Red Romance Book • Various

More quotes...