bedlock

English

Etymology

Blend of bed +‎ wedlock

Noun

bedlock (uncountable)

  1. A relationship involving sleeping together (i.e. sharing a bed) without being legally married.
    • 1882, John Alonzo Clark, A Young Disciple, page 362:
      He wants you an' me to fall dead in love, an' be j'ined in bedlock.
    • 2005, David Luke (translator), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Selected Poetry, Penguin Classics, page 30:
      Not a single pleasure is risk-free; Who in his own wife's lap now lays a confident head? Neither in wedlock now nor in bedlock can we be.
    • 2009, Nicholas Johnson, What Do You Mean and how Do You Know?:
      If Rose is having a tennis party it may make more sense to include Joe's steady tennis partner, Sue (with whom he has never had sex), than either his wife (from whom he has been separated for four months) or Dizzy (a current partner in bedlock whose most outstanding qualities are neither athletic nor intellectual).

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