Word.ws English Dictionary

republican marriage

republican marriage noun: an alleged form of execution during the French Revolution in which a man and woman were tied together naked, exposed to public view for a time in this condition, and then stabbed, shot, or thrown into a body of water to drown.

Noun (1)

republican marriage (countable and uncountable, plural republican marriages)

  1. (historical) An alleged form of execution during the French Revolution in which a man and woman were tied together naked, exposed to public view for a time in this condition, and then stabbed, shot, or thrown into a body of water to drown.
    • A Revolutionary Tribunal was established [at Nantes ], of which [Jean Paul] Carrier was the presiding demon—Carrier, known in all nations as the inventor of that last of barbarous atrocities, the Republican Marriage, in which two persons of different sexes, generally an old man and an old woman, or...1850, Archibald Alison, Edward Sherman Gould, History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789, to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, page 44
    • "By degrees, daylight itself witnesses Noyades: women and men are tied together, feet and feet, hands and hands; and flung in: this they call Mariage Républicain, Republican Marriage."1907, Henry Smith Williams, The Historians' History of the World, page 330

Noun (2) capitalized: Republican Marriage

Republican Marriage (countable and uncountable, plural Republican Marriages)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of republican marriage.

Forms of republican marriage

pluralrepublican marriages
pluralRepublican Marriages

Questions about republican marriage

What does republican marriage mean?
Republican marriage means an alleged form of execution during the French Revolution in which a man and woman were tied together naked, exposed to public view for a time in this condition, and then stabbed, shot, or thrown into a body of water to drown.
What part of speech is republican marriage?
Republican marriage is a noun.
What is the plural of republican marriage?
The plural of republican marriage is republican marriages.

Words near republican marriage in the dictionary

  1. Republic of Zaqistan
  2. Republic of Zimbabwe
  3. republican
  4. Republican China
  5. Republican Guard
  6. republican marriage
  7. republican marriages
  8. Republican motherhood
  9. Republican Queen
  10. Republican Queens
  11. republicanise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: republican marriage (page history and authors); Republican Marriage (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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