Word.ws English Dictionary

starter marriage

starter marriage noun: a first marriage for an individual or couple that either was short-lived or is expected to be unsuccessful, especially when viewed as serving as preparation for a subsequent marriage.

Noun

starter marriage (plural starter marriages)

  1. (informal) A first marriage for an individual or couple that either was short-lived or is expected to be unsuccessful, especially when viewed as serving as preparation for a subsequent marriage.
    • A starter marriage is one where the couple marries young and gets divorced before the arrival of the first child—and usually before the arrival of the first wrinkle. Starter marriages are more common among overachievers.2008, Cooper Lawrence, The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace with Your Inner Overachiever, Guilford, Connecticut: skirt!, →ISBN, page 212

Forms of starter marriage

pluralstarter marriages

Questions about starter marriage

What does starter marriage mean?
Starter marriage means a first marriage for an individual or couple that either was short-lived or is expected to be unsuccessful, especially when viewed as serving as preparation for a subsequent marriage.
What part of speech is starter marriage?
Starter marriage is a noun.
What is the plural of starter marriage?
The plural of starter marriage is starter marriages.

Words near starter marriage in the dictionary

  1. starter homes
  2. starter house
  3. starter houses
  4. starter kit
  5. starter kits
  6. starter marriage
  7. starter marriages
  8. starter motor
  9. starter motors
  10. starter pack
  11. starter packs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: starter 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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Cite this entry: “starter marriage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/starter_marriage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.