Hypogamy

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The seeking of a spouse of lower socioeconomic status or caste than oneself. uncountable

    "The reverse (hypogamy) is rare because with marriage a woman and her future offspring take on the social position of the husband, and so an upper‐class woman marrying a lower‐class man reduces her position as well as that of her children."

Synonyms

All synonyms
marrying downmarrying down

Example

More examples

"The reverse (hypogamy) is rare because with marriage a woman and her future offspring take on the social position of the husband, and so an upper‐class woman marrying a lower‐class man reduces her position as well as that of her children."

Etymology

From hypo- + -gamy.

More for "hypogamy"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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