Bridegrooms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A male who is about to be married or has just been married, typically in a formal ceremony
2. A partner in a wedding who is responsible for vows and commitments, usually alongside a bride
3. A significant figure in nuptial traditions, often engaged in planning and preparing for the wedding celebration

Etymology: This word is an inflected form, the plural of "bridegroom," so the story belongs to that base word. "Bridegroom" combines Old English "brȳd," meaning bride, with "guma," an old word for man, and the compound was in use as "brȳdguma" before English changed much at all. Over time the second half of the word was reshaped by folk etymology: "guma" became obsolete, so speakers reinterpreted the ending as "groom," influenced by "grom" or "grome," a word for an attendant. The result is a term that reads as "bride's man" in its origins but now seems to refer to a servant of the bride's household. Cousins of the word appear across the Germanic languages, from Dutch "bruidegom" and German "Bräutigam" to Swedish "brudgum" and Icelandic "brúðgumi," showing that the compound was shared widely among the Germanic peoples. The Middle English forms "brydgrome" and "bridegome" show the same reshaping at work in the centuries before modern spelling settled.

Synonyms: grooms, husbands