Category: Relationships, Dating & Intimacy

Espouse: Meaning, Supporting Beliefs, Marriage, and Sexual Values

Espouse means to adopt or publicly support a belief or cause. In older and literary English, it can also mean to marry someone.

Marry means to become another person’s spouse or to conduct a marriage ceremony. It may also mean combining two ideas or qualities closely.

Wedding means the ceremony or celebration in which people marry and may include legal, religious, cultural, social, and intimate expectations.

Wed means to marry or join two people in marriage. It is a formal alternative to marry and may also mean combining two ideas or qualities closely.

Matrimony is a formal word for marriage or the married state, often used in ceremonial, religious, legal, historical, and literary contexts.

Married means joined to another person through marriage and may describe a person, couple, relationship, legal status, or shared married life.

Fiancée traditionally means a woman engaged to be married and describes her relationship during the period before marriage.

Fiancé traditionally means a man engaged to be married, though some people now use it as a gender-neutral term for an engaged partner.

Boyfriend means a male romantic partner and may describe a casual, exclusive, long-term, sexual, or nonsexual dating relationship.

Husband means a man who is married and may describe his legal, emotional, domestic, romantic, and intimate role within marriage.