Word.ws English Dictionary

hymeneal

UK/hʌɪməˈniːəl/

hymeneal adjective: pertaining to marriage.

Adjective

hymeneal (comparative more hymeneal, superlative most hymeneal)

  1. Pertaining to marriage.
    • I consider these more as the privileges of age, than as part of the hymeneal dowry.1806, Jane West, Letters to a Young Lady, volume I
    • It seems to me that girls ought to be early taught to discriminate, between the characteristic of a hymeneal connexion and of a dishonourable one apparently resembling it.1831, Anna Maria Winter, Thoughts on the Moral Order of Nature, vol. III, IV.3.vii
  2. Pertaining to sexual relations.
    • Although the whole earth, not we alone, is moved by passions hymeneal, and everything terrestrial has come into being by the one common road, yet there is that ridiculous tendency to close the eyes and turn away the head as if there were something unclean in nature itself.1911, Theodore Dreiser, chapter XI, in Jennie Gerhardt
  3. Of or pertaining to the hymen.
    • ‘It doesn't seem to qualify as a haemorrhage,’ he said, with his usual cocky certainty. ‘Just heavy hymeneal bleeding, I'd say.’1978, AS Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden, page 422

Noun

hymeneal (plural hymeneals)

  1. A hymn, song or poem in honour of a wedding.
    • For her white virgins hymeneals sing, / To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away, / And melts in visions of eternal day.1717, Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard

hymeneal meaning in Tamil

hymeneal in Tamil

திருமணப்பாட்டு, திருமணஞ் சார்ந்த

Examples of hymeneal in a sentence

  • Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at the "Hymeneal" altar."1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, “Mr. Micawber’s Gauntlet”, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury &...
  • The uninvited guests enveloped and permeated them, and upon the night air rose joyous cries, congratulations, laughter and unclassified noises born of McGary's oblations to the hymeneal scene.1906 April, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “From the Cabby’s Seat”, in The Four Million, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips &...

Forms of hymeneal

Adjective
comparativemore hymeneal
superlativemost hymeneal
Noun
pluralhymeneals

Origin of hymeneal

From Latin hymenaeus (from Ancient Greek ὑμεναῖος (humenaîos, “matrimonial”)) + -al. Compare hymen.

Words formed from hymeneal

Questions about hymeneal

What does hymeneal mean?
Hymeneal means pertaining to marriage.
What is hymeneal in Tamil?
Hymeneal in Tamil is திருமணப்பாட்டு, திருமணஞ் சார்ந்த. See Hymeneal meaning in Tamil.
How do you use hymeneal in a sentence?
Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at the "Hymeneal" altar."
What part of speech is hymeneal?
Hymeneal can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce hymeneal?
Hymeneal is pronounced /hʌɪməˈniːəl/ (UK).

Words near hymeneal in the dictionary

  1. hymenaean
  2. hymenaeans
  3. hymenal
  4. hymenally challenged
  5. hymenate
  6. hymeneal
  7. hymeneally
  8. hymeneals
  9. hymenean
  10. hymeneans
  11. hymenectomies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hymeneal (page history and authors); hymeneal (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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-hymeneal.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hymeneal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hymeneal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.