shotgun wedding

shotgun wedding

noun
1.
a wedding occasioned or precipitated by pregnancy.
2.
Informal. a compromise, merger, accord, etc., occasioned by necessity: The coalition government was obviously a shotgun wedding.
Also, shotgun marriage.


Origin:
1925–30, Americanism
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Shotgun wedding is always a great word to know.
So is gobo. Does it mean:
a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
Collins
World English Dictionary
shotgun wedding
 
n
informal a wedding into which one or both partners are coerced, usually because the woman is pregnant

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon
Main Entry:  shotgun wedding
Part of Speech:  n
Definition:  a marriage of necessity, often hurried due to pregnancy; also, a marriage that is part of a deal or accord; also called shotgun marriage
Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon
Copyright © 2003-2012 Dictionary.com, LLC
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Slang Dictionary

shotgun wedding definition


  1. n.
    a forced wedding, presumably because the bride is pregnant. : It was a shotgun wedding, but they sure are in love.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

Shotgun wedding

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.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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