gretna green
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.48 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A village on the border between England and Scotland (in Dumfries and Galloway council area just inside Scotland), famous for easy marriages (OS grid ref NY3168).
adj
carried out quickly and secretively in a jurisdiction that is not the bride or groom's own. (of a marriage)
Example Sentences
- "The Clown is a London cockney, with a prodigious eye to his own comfort and muffins,—a Lord Mayor's fool, who loved "everything that was good;" and Columbine is the boarding-school girl, ripe for running away with, and making a dance of it all the way from Chelsea to Gretna Green."
- "It was nothing more nor less than to convert all places licensed under the Toleration Act into Gretna Greens, where persons of all persuasions might go and make irregular marriages."
- "Federal Writers Project (1952), West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State, →ISBN, page 485: “A town of narrow streets and smoke-begrimed old buildings, Wellsburg thrived as a Gretna Green for many years”"
- "The sexual irresponsibility attributed to most gin marriages could not help being linked with the possibility of a sexually transmitted infection that accompanied the couples, untested, to Crown Point, Valparaiso, or other Gretna Greens."
- "There has been a Gretna Green marriage in Brockville. Miss Mary Ann Hall and a Mr. Underwood ran away to Ogdensburg (New York) and got married last week and was back again the night before last."
- "He made a very pleasant morning's sport, especially as it was my first conquest, and entitled me to all the privileges of a Floridian. At this my favorite place of resort, a Gretna-Green affair happened, just before my arrival, and was witnessed by a companion who was often with me"
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: Old English
Word Breakdown
- Root: greot