Connubial

//kəˈnjuː.bi.əl// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or relating to the state of being married.

    ""For my part," continued the Duke of Wharton, "I hold that the connubial system of this country is a complete mistake. The only happy marriages I ever heard of are those in some Eastern story I once read, where the king marries a new wife every night, and cuts off her head in the morning.""

Adjective
  1. 1
    of or relating to marriage or to the relationship between a wife and husband wordnet

Example

More examples

""For my part," continued the Duke of Wharton, "I hold that the connubial system of this country is a complete mistake. The only happy marriages I ever heard of are those in some Eastern story I once read, where the king marries a new wife every night, and cuts off her head in the morning.""

Etymology

1650s, from Latin connūbiālis, from connūbium (“marriage, wedlock”) (variants of cōnūbiālis (“pertaining to wedlock”), from cōnūbium (“marriage, wedlock”)) from com- (“together”) (English com-) + nūbō (“marry, to take as husband”) (from which nubile) from Proto-Indo-European *sneubho- (“to marry, to wed”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.