| 释义 |
bigamy|ˈbɪgəmɪ|
Forms: 3–7 bigamie, 4 bygamye, 6 bygamy, 6– bigamy.
[a. F. bigamie, f. bigame: see bigame and -y.]
1. Marriage with a second wife or husband during the lifetime of the first; the crime of having two wives or husbands at once.
c1250Gen. & Ex. 449 Bigamie is unkinde ðing, On engleis tale, twie-wifing. c1386Chaucer Wife's Prol. 54 Of shrewed Lamech and his bigamie. 1460J. Capgrave Chron. (1858) 5 Lamech, that broute in first bigamie. 1660Stanley Hist. Philos. (1701) 97/2 The occasion, whereupon the Athenians..allowed bigamy. c1725Pope Mart. Scribl. xiii, A suit against Martin for Bigamy. 1884Pall Mall G. 4 Mar. 3/2 Bigamy cases seldom have any legal interest for lawyers at the present day.
b. (Used fig. or loosely.)
1635J. Taylor (Water P.) Old Parr D j, Each man had many wives, which Bigamie, Was such increase to their Posterity. a1658Cleveland Gen. Poems (1677) 70 But is this Bigamy of Titles due? Are you Sir Thomas and Sir Martin too?
2. Eccl. Law. Re-marriage after the death of a first wife (or husband); marriage of, or with, a widow (or widower). Obs. exc. Hist.
[1345Act [in Rastell 1557] 18 Edw. III, ii, De trier par enquestes ou en auter maner la bygamie. ]1528More Conf. agst. Trib. iii. Wks. 229/1 The forbidding of bigamy by y⊇ wedding of one wife after another. 1543Grafton Cont. Harding 504 It is..a greate blemishe to the sacred maiestie of a prince..to bee defiled wt bigamy in his first mariage. 1594Shakes. Rich. III, iii. vii. 189 Seduc'd..To base declension, and loath'd Bigamie. 1752Fielding Amelia vi. vii, I shall not enter into the question concerning the legality of bigamy. Our laws certainly allow it. 1865Nichols Britton II. 25 note, Bigamy (in the ancient and proper sense of the word) involved the loss of the benefit of clergy. |