Word.ws English Dictionary

octogamy

octogamy noun: the state of having eight spouses simultaneously.

Noun

octogamy (uncountable)

  1. The state of having eight spouses simultaneously.
    • I regret to say John has never had that pleasure yet; but if the "Honourable" Herbert D'Aulnoy should darken my doors again, I should feel it my duty to communicate certain facts about him to Sir Richard Mayne and Mr. Pollaky, and to ensure his conviction for bigamy, trigamy, quadrigamy, or perhaps...1865 March 25, Vere Haldane, “'Would-Be Wives, Beware!': A Caution Founded On Fact”, in Once A Week, page 378
    • The best wardmaster in Scutari had eight wives—I mean eight wives alive—at different stations. […] He was tried when he came home at Warwick Assizes for what was euphoniously called bigamy, but was octogamy.1888, Florence Nightingale, letter to Maude Verney dated 2 February 1888, published in Lynn McDonald, Florence Nightingale: An Introduction to Her Life and Family (2010), page 713

Origin of octogamy

From octo- + -gamy. Compare Middle English octogamie.

Questions about octogamy

What does octogamy mean?
Octogamy means the state of having eight spouses simultaneously.
What part of speech is octogamy?
Octogamy is a noun.

Words near octogamy in the dictionary

  1. octofinal
  2. octofinals
  3. octofoil
  4. octofoiled
  5. octofoils
  6. octogamy
  7. octogen
  8. octogenarian
  9. octogenarianism
  10. octogenarians
  11. octogenaries

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: octogamy (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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