shotgun marriage









shotgun marriage


noun

  1. a wedding occasioned or precipitated by pregnancy.
  2. Informal. a compromise, merger, accord, etc., occasioned by necessity: The coalition government was obviously a shotgun wedding.

noun

  1. informal a wedding into which one or both partners are coerced, usually because the woman is pregnant

An agreement or compromise made through necessity, as in Since neither side won a majority, the coalition government was obviously a shotgun wedding. This expression alludes to a marriage precipitated by a woman’s pregnancy, causing her father to point a literal or figurative gun at the responsible man’s head. Its figurative use dates from the mid-1900s.

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