alimony
Syllables: a·li·monyUK/ˈæl.ɪ.mə.ni//ˈæl.ə.moʊ.ni/
alimony noun: a court-mandated allowance made to a former spouse by a divorced or legally separated person.
Noun
alimony (countable and uncountable, plural alimonies)
- A court-mandated allowance made to a former spouse by a divorced or legally separated person.
- In that case he has to pay her alimony even if there are no children, and if she is one of those smart ones, interested in nothing but a good living and independence, she is set for life.1938 November 11, Westbrook Pegler, “Fair Enough”, in The Evening Independent, St. Petersburg, Florida, retrieved 20 Dec 2008, page A1
- Who won, huh? Nobody. Used to be sex was the only free thing, No longer. Alimony… palimony… it's all financial. Love is an illusion.1985, Joel Schumacher, Carl Kurlander, St. Elmo's Fire (motion picture), spoken by Kevin Dolenz (Andrew McCarthy)
- Synonyms:
- maintenance
- Nourishment, sustenance, especially for one's spirit.
- […]while we eate the bread of sorrow, drinking the wine of compunction, wee hunger and thirst after heauenly things, and shall be comforted. This is the constant alimonie of the righteous, at dinner and supper, in life and death[…]1626, Sampson Price, Londons remembrancer: for the staying of the contagious sicknes of the plague by Dauids memoriall, pages 27–28
- […] What marvell if our corne faile us, when wee faile God in the good employment of our corne?[…]So that drunkennesse, gluttony, fraud, covetisme, the unworthy receiving, or not receiving of the Sacraments, and a million more are all in cause, why God denies this fruitfull alimonie, which...1633, John Randal, Noble Blastus the honor of a lord chamberlaine: and of a good bed-chamber-man: or The courtier justified in conditions of peace, pages 32–33
alimony meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
alimony in Hindi
- alimony
- संभरण sambhraṇ
alimony in Urdu
- alimony
- مہر mahr
alimony in Malayalam
- maintenance, financial support, support
- ജീവനാംശം, സഹായധനം, ധനസഹായം, സാമ്പത്തിക സഹായം, ഉപജീവനത്തിനായി നൽകുന്ന പണം, കുട്ടിക്കുള്ള ജീവനാംശം
alimony in Kannada
- ಬಾಳ್ವೆಪಡಿ, ಜೀವನಾಂಶ, ಜೀವನ ನಡೆಸಲು ಕೊಡುವ ಹಣ, ಜೀವನಾಧಾರ, ಪೋಷಕ ದ್ರವ್ಯ
More languagesFewer languages
- alimony in Punjabi
- ਗੁਜਾਰਾ ਭੱਤਾ
- alimony in Nepali
- गुजारा भत्ता
- alimony in Arabic
- نَفَقَة nafaqa
- alimony in Persian
- نفقه nafaqe, باروزه bāruze, خرجی xarji
- alimony in Thai
- ค่าอุปการะเลี้ยงดู kâa-ùp-bpà-gaa-rá-líiang-duu
Synonyms of alimony
Forms of alimony
| plural | alimonies |
|---|
Origin of alimony
Known since the 17th century, from Latin alimōnia (“food, support, nourishment, sustenance”) (English aliment, as in alimentary), itself from alō (“to nourish”) + -mōnia (“action, state, condition”).
Words formed from alimony
Phrases with alimony
Questions about alimony
- What does alimony mean?
- Alimony means a court-mandated allowance made to a former spouse by a divorced or legally separated person.
- What is alimony in Hindi?
- Alimony in Hindi is संभरण (sambhraṇ). See Alimony meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is alimony?
- Alimony is a noun.
- How do you pronounce alimony?
- Alimony is pronounced /ˈæl.ɪ.mə.ni/ (UK).
- What is the plural of alimony?
- The plural of alimony is alimonies.
Words near alimony in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: alimony (page history and authors); संभरण (Hindi) (page history and authors); مہر (Urdu) (page history and authors); alimony (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); alimony (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); alimony (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); alimony (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-alimony.ogg.
Cite this entry: “alimony.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/alimony. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.