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View synonyms for shotgun wedding
shotgun wedding
or shotgun marriage
noun
- a wedding occasioned or precipitated by pregnancy.
- Informal. a compromise, merger, accord, etc., occasioned by necessity:
The coalition government was obviously a shotgun wedding.
shotgun wedding
noun
- informal.a wedding into which one or both partners are coerced, usually because the woman is pregnant
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Word History and Origins
Origin of shotgun wedding1
An Americanism dating back to 1925–30
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Idioms and Phrases
An agreement or compromise made through necessity, as in Since neither side won a majority, the coalition government was obviously a shotgun wedding . This expression alludes to a marriage precipitated by a woman's pregnancy, causing her father to point a literal or figurative gun at the responsible man's head. Its figurative use dates from the mid-1900s.Discover More
Example Sentences
But there are some clues that this may be a shotgun wedding.
From The Daily Beast
And about when do you plan that this defense marriage—this shotgun wedding—is to take place?
From Project Gutenberg
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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