elope
/ɪˈləʊp
/verb [no object]
Run away secretly in order to get married: later he eloped with one of the housemaids...
- Count Baldwin I of Flanders eloped with Judith, daughter of King Charles the Bald of the west Franks, who was by the age of 16 the widow of two kings of Wessex.
- Never particularly happy in his home life, at the age of 19 Shelley eloped with his first love, Harriet Grove, who bore him a daughter two years later.
- Hogarth, his sometime pupil, eloped with his daughter in 1729.
Synonyms
run away to marry, run off/away together, slip away, sneak off, steal away;
run off/away with a lover
Derivatives
elopement
/ noun ...- While genuine elopements are now rare, the local registry office, which charges £148 for a marriage licence, now injects around £500,000 a year into the local economy.
- But true love was never all excuse for an unapproved marriage, and elopements frequently caused heartache and family break-up, particularly in aristocratic circles.
- The Bertram sisters' elopements are the result of the flirtations that occur during rehearsals for amateur theatricals at Mansfield Park.
eloper
- Indeed, before 1849, steamers crossing the channel often contained young Irish elopers who made the 21 mile journey in order to be married in Portpatrick's 17th century church.
- The long time friends and potential elopers begin to notice odd happenings around their school and town.
- It began with a trickle of English elopers sneaking across the Border to get married at Gretna.
Origin
Late 16th century (in the general sense 'abscond, run away'): from Anglo-Norman French aloper, perhaps related to leap.