connubial

1650s, from Latin connūbiālis, from connūbium (“marriage, wedlock”) (variants of cōnūbiālis (“pertaining to wedlock”), from cōnūbium (“marriage, wedlock”)) from com- (“together”) (English com-) + nūbō (“marry, to take as husband”) (from which nubile)^[1] from Proto-Indo-European *sneubho- (“to marry, to wed”).

• IPA^(key): /kəˈnjuː.bi.əl/

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connubial (comparative more connubial, superlative most connubial)

1. Of or relating to the state of being married.
   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 179–180:

     "For my part," continued the Duke of Wharton, "I hold that the connubial system of this country is a complete mistake. The only happy marriages I ever heard of are those in some Eastern story I once read, where the king marries a new wife every night, and cuts off her head in the morning."

   • 1856, Samuel Klinefelter Hoshour, Letters to Squire Pedant, in the East, page 13:

     Not gyved with connubial relations, I entered upon my migration entirely isolated, with the exception of a canine quadruped whose mordacious, latrant, lusorious, and venatic qualities, are without parity.

• Particularly used in fixed phrases, such as connubial bliss, connubial love, connubial relations, and connubial bed.

• conjugal

• nubile
• nuptial, nuptials

From Latin connūbiālis.

• IPA^(key): /konnuˈbjal/ [kõn.nuˈβ̞jal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: con‧nu‧bial

connubial m or f (masculine and feminine plural connubiales)

1. connubial

• “connubial”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025