marriage

1. A union of two or more people that creates a family tie and carries legal, social, and/or religious rights and responsibilities.Examples: ""I have a patient right now whose marriage proved to be a tragedy. She wanted love, sexual gratification, children, and social prestige; but life blasted all her hopes. Her husband didn't love her. He refused even to eat with her, and forced her to serve his meals in his room upstairs. She had no children, no social standing. She went insane; and, in her imagination, she divorced her husband and resumed her maiden name. She now believes she has married into the English aristocracy, and she insists on being called Lady Smith."; "My grandparents' marriage lasted for forty years."; "Pat and Leslie's marriage to each other lasted forty years."countablesometimesspecificallyuncountable

2. A union of two or more people that creates a family tie and carries legal, social, and/or religious rights and responsibilities.countableoftenspecificallyuncountable

3. (figuratively) A close union.Examples: "And this marriage of poetry and history remained a solid relationship throughout the classical period."; "Above all, we will no longer have to feel qualms about the marriage of art and money. We will no longer have to wonder if it is possible to separate the esthetic value of an art work from its commercial value."; "But the food is real: a marriage of local ingredients and serious technique."countablefigurativelyuncountable

4. (card games) A king and a queen, when held as a hand in some versions of poker or melded in pinochle.countableuncountable

5. (card games) In solitaire or patience games, the placing a card of the same suit on the next one above or below it in value.countableuncountable

6. (prison slang) A homosexual relationship between male prisoners.countableslanguncountable