marriage mart
- noun
- /ˈmɛrɪdʒ mɑrt/
- She found her husband through a reputable marriage mart that catered to professionals.
Examples
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A new marriage mart opened downtown, promising to match hopeful singles with compatible partners.
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During the 19th century, some social events acted as an informal marriage mart for the upper class.
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The local marriage mart has many success stories.
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Many people visit a marriage mart to find partners.
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A new marriage mart opened downtown, promising to match hopeful singles with compatible partners.
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She found her husband through a reputable marriage mart that catered to professionals.
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During the 19th century, some social events acted as an informal marriage mart for the upper class.
Synonyms
A person who introduces people so they can marry
A person who helps two people meet and get married, usually for money
A business that helps people find a husband or wife for a fee
A person who arranges marriages for other people
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly built from the constituents: 'marriage' (the institution/partnership) + 'mart' (a market or place of commercial activity), yielding a market/place for arranging marriages or matching spouses. This noun–noun compounding follows normal compositional patterns (cf. 'marriage market') so a B1 learner who knows both words can plausibly infer the intended sense.
Etymology
Marriage mart may come from the simple image of a market: a mart is a place where people buy and sell, and a marriage mart was like a market where families showed single people to be 'matched' with partners. So today marriage mart means a business or agency that helps 'match' people for 'marriage'.